Ummmm....

 I just got called 'big daddy' a few minutes ago by one of our tugboaters.

 I don't know how I feel about that. Damn kids. 

The last of the good times

 Well, it was a good run. 2 weeks of good work at work. But that's over for now. 

        My final week this trip sees me back in NYC, back to bunkering ships aboard a manned bunker barge, in the smallest quarters imaginable.  It's been about 10 years since I've been aboard one of the Ghetto Sleds. 

 The Ghetto Sleds are some elderly trunk deck barges- barges with an elevated maindeck that stands taller (about 5 feet in this case) than the perimeter of the barge, basically leaving a 2 1/2 foot wide walkway around the perimeter. 

   The house on these things is TINY for 2 men. The office/galley is about 8x10, the head is 6ft by 6 feet, and the bunkroom, with 2 beds, is also 6x6.  Luckily I am about 1/8 inch under 6ft tall but anyone taller has to sleep with their knees bent.   

    It's uncomfortable. When you're sleeping, the guy on watch is 3-4 feet away, as is anyone else like deckhands stepping in the house, cargo surveyors, etc.  

     The Ghetto Sleds, there being 4 of them around the east coast, are actually good training platforms.  The cargo pumps, piping and tanks are simply laid out and easy to operate and for some reason, very forgiving if you let a tank run dry and suck a little air into the pumps.  On the HQ you get 3-4 seconds max of sucking air and the pumps lose prime, and repriming can be a bear when it works at all on a near empty tank. On the Ghetto Sleds?  10 seconds. Big difference for a newer guy who is learning the ropes. Plus, the small uncomfortable quarters make one more grateful for the standard somewhat larger quarters found elsewhere in the fleet. 

So here I am.   Next week I get off early, one week early. Innapropriately hot foreign wife is flying up to meet me in Boston to attend a family wedding and do some visiting before we head back home. 

 

A great day makes you think...

 Yesterday was a good day.

   I've been having some of those lately.  I don't think I'd had a nice day at work since last September.  And here I am, several of them now recently. 

     Midway down Long Island Sound, in beautiful calm water, our assist tug broke out of push gear, swung up to the bow and took our tow pennant, and swung us out on a short tow, staying about 600-700 feet ahead of us. 

     It's been YEARS since I was towed. The silence was amazing. I could hear the water running along the hull, with just the drone of our generator in the distance. 

 I must have stayed out there an hour, just communing with the infinite. 

 Today we're in Providence RI, and tonight we'll head back to NY.  Tugboats being built for power not speed it's about a 22hr ride, but it includes a coastal passage with exposure to ocean swells for about 8 hours....and that's where we were last night when I was just falling asleep. Maybe 8 degrees of roll, just perfect. I slept AMAZING and I'm a horrible sleeper.   I never slept well in a heavier swell, but this was perfection. I rose up to being almost awake once or twice, and the swell was comforting AF.

 

 I've really been feeling awful lately. Nonstop work, broken sleep, harassment by shoreside workers wanting my attention at all hours, often repetitive because they don't all talk to each other, not enough time or opportunity to decompress, inability to maintain personal hygeine due to defective, broken or nonfunctional equipment, and increasing demands for work-based minutia that must be addressed in free time. Plus some stresses in my personal life, the fiscal disaster we're trying to unfuck in Brazil... it's adding up.  I'm not depressed or anything, just miserable and I feel like a massive pussy just admitting that. 

 Thank God for my wife. She's keeping me sane, and a good wife makes the unbearable bearable for a little longer.

        

        I've noticed I'm not the only one here. 

        It's not just me. My peers at work are feeling it too, and we're starting to talk about it, because it seems nobody ashore gives a fuck. I've had a young but very capable peer reach out to me twice now, and I don't think he even knew why he was compelled to call me beyond the need to feel unalone.  I'm personally seeing more incidents happening to experienced, senior tankermen, not the low-quality new guys we're being inundated by, but the senior cadre, the guys trying to do the jobs and who can be trusted to do them well. It's distressing to see  mistakes, sometimes severe and even career-ending, made by bewildered men whom I KNOW to not be fuckups. 

      Turns out, there's a name for that.  Situational distress, and while it seems to be common now among peers and shipmates, it was not, up until the workload went through the roof and the work lifestyle went in the toilet. 

      As we work 24/7/365, these things ARE a work-related issue, and something I hope employers will address. My off time while aboard is theoretically NOT my own time. I'm being paid to do a job... but if every day is a sucking hole of misery, something has to give, whether it's me... or me, I guess. 

      There's a great article here on the subject: 

https://gcaptain.com/moving-beyond-mental-health-a-smarter-approach-to-human-risk-in-maritime-operations/

Most maritime incidents don’t happen because of undiagnosed mental health disorders. They occur due to momentary lapses in judgment, exhaustion, and impaired decision-making. The problem isn’t just mental health—it’s the silent accumulation of operational stressors that lead to situational distress: cognitive fatigue, emotional strain, and performance degradation in the moment. These human factors are subtle, dynamic, and often invisible to traditional mental health tools, yet they’re the most common precursors to errors and accidents at sea often resulting in loss of life, environmental impacts, and asset damage or loss.

Situational Distress: The Missing Piece in Maritime Safety

Situational distress is not a clinical condition—it’s a temporary but critical stress response to the working environment. Research suggests that while only a small percentage of seafarers start their careers with clinical depression or anxiety, the demands of life at sea lead to a significant rise in reported psychological distress symptoms over time.

Many cases emerge due to accumulated stressors—like fatigue, unpredictable weather, and high workloads—rather than pre-existing conditions. Unlike depression or anxiety, they don’t require psychiatric treatment, but they do require proactive intervention to prevent it from escalating into chronic fatigue, burnout, or operational errors.

Despite this, most mental health assessments in maritime settings treat distress as an individual issue rather than an operational risk factor. A captain under extreme fatigue might not meet the criteria for clinical depression, but their exhaustion could still impair judgment at a critical moment. A traditional self-reported survey won’t catch this, but behavioral risk assessments can.

Well worth reading.  

Tour de farce continues

 

        Whoo, I am SORE today. 

          I'm back in beautiful Bayonne New Jersey, the French Riviera of New York harbor, this morning. 

     I finished up my last week in Philly yesterday, and it was a damn good week... it reminded me of what my job USED to be like, when I truly liked my job. Interesting jobs, smaller ships, time to do what we needed to do. 

     It was just as busy in Philly as it is here for us, but as there is almost always a slightly longer steam in between load and discharge, it allows you to recharge your batteries in between ops... just 30 minutes more sometimes, and that's enough. And I mean, the weather was fine too, mostly.  I saw bald eagles just 1/2 mile from the company's office.  The most startling thing of all, and it was a minor thing, but the oil terminals are so SILENT there. No scream of pumps, or steam lines hissing, no having to compete with 30+ people on the same radio frequency to talk to the dockman... all good. 

        So, just as the ride last week from NY to Philly was a trial that ended up being ironically humorous, the ride yesterday from Philly to NY was terrible again, but this time not funny in the least. Frightening and infuriating this time. 

     My day started at 4am yesterday, which is close to normal- I got about 3 hours sleep since I was doing an odd watch rotation last week, but so be it.  I got a ride by tug to the company office/HQ, which is a lot larger than the NY office HQ, real estate being what it is in NY.  The philly office has 1/4 mile of dock space, and it was absolutely jammed up for crew change. There was literally no space whatsoever for me to get ashore, but in the middle were 4 tugboats all rafted up side by side, so with my Large Collection of stuff, me being homeless at work with my barge in shipyard, my worldly posessions at work and I did a 4 tugboat bag drag, which is a ballbuster.  Literally. The bulwarks, or gunwales, are 4 feet tall or more, and canted inward, so you end up crushing your nuts as you get a leg over, and with the inward cant, plus the tugs' bumpers (our tugs have a rubber bumper about 12 inches thick surrounding the hull at the waterline), it's 5-6 feet from one bulwark to the other, so passing a heavy seabag, a trash bag of winter clothes, a trashbag of summer clothes, leftover groceries, a bag of frozen meats, my bedroll, my laptop bag... basically 8-9 bags of shit, it's a workout. 

 X4. 

 THEN I climbed up a ladder to get ashore, back and forth with my shit... which I then could drag to the parking lot. 

 If that was tedious to read, I assure you it was tedious to actually do. 

        I got to the Philly office with time to spare, and I got to see some shipmates and had a nice talk. One of them, one of our senior tug captains, was going in the same crew van to NY as me. I even got to see one of my former trainees, now an experienced tankerman down there. It was a good time. 

 But the van ride... there were 5 of us in the van, and our stuff, and it was pretty tight but we fit everything.  The van driver was a tall black guy, hitting his vape pretty hard while we were loading the van. Different company from the one we use in NY. 

   What was in that vape?  I'm guessing the good stuff because the driver was TERRIBLE.   He cut people off, and jerked the wheel, drifted within inches of other vehicles, and got lost repeatedly WITH THE GPS OF HIS PHONE ON!   He kept driving when the GPS told him to turn, missed highway exits, even got off the highway and into an office park before I realized we were fucked up, and when I piped up and said 'Hey, where the fuck are we?' He said 'My bad, I was following the GPS.'   

 No, no you weren't. You were driving while high, and not looking at your phone, and only half-listening to it as well, you fucking retard. 

 Being an idiot AND high is a terrible combimation. 

 After this pretty much all of us yelled out directions, which he sometimes got right.  There was cursing. 

    As we approached NY his high peaked. 

    We were somewhere near Staten Island when the drugs began to truly take hold.  The driver weaved, drove 2mph in traffic with an empty HOV lane next to him (until I gently said 'bro, take that left lane next to you, please'). Then once we got over the Tappan Zee bridge he ran through some red lights until we all chorused 'Red Light!' every time. He then smacked his side mirror off a parked truck's mirror. And missed the turn off to the side street to our office, and was headed for The Battery tunnel entrance until we all got yelling again. 

       I got off that van drained, ennervated and pissed off.

    Oh. And also, the whole ride, rap music and black radio dj's, dissing each other I guess, and saying retsrded shit. He wouldn't turn that off. Imagine 4 hours of those fake court tv shows made a baby with Jerry Springer, plus a bunch of idiots bragging  about themseves in rhyme set to a drum track. For 4 hours. 

    Made me happy to get out of that van.  4 hours for a 2 hour ride.   

     When we were 10 mins from the office, the NY crew scheduler called me and changed my assignment for the week.  I had a pretty good gig lined up, a diesel barge normally left for the fuckups, elderly and lazy, as it has simple jobs and not many of those... but I went instead to the OTHER diesel barge, which works a little more, and better, goes out of town a little. 

   So I had some luck.  I'm on there now. I came aboard at a busy terminal in Bayonne NJ, and 5 seconds after putting my bags down in the house I was at the desk starting the calculations for a 3 part cargo blend, something I'll share at some point... anyhow  I got the figgarin' done and the signoffs signed, put on a poopy suit, (a boilersuit, coveralls, speed suit, whatever you want to call it), and fired up the hydraulics to pick up a cargo hose and swing the crane ashore, got us started and the 1st product loaded before getting relieved by the night guy. 

    By the time I was putting my clothes away, it was after 1800, and I was getting sore AF. I got my stuff stowed, my bunk made up, talked with my wife a little and absolutely DIED to the world for 8 hours. 

     Today? I feel my knees and shoulders. We're waiting on the next tide to sail to a lay berth to sit for the day and let the squally winds die down a bit before we try to catch the tide tonight for the ride through Hell Gate (NY's upper east side and the entrance to  Long Island Sound) and The Race at the other end tomorrow, ultimately  to Providence RI to pump off before riding home to Brooklyn again. 

 Should be fun. But most fun of all I think I can sit my fat aching ass down today for a few hours.

Different but similar

 Wow, a lot happened in terms of my staid boring job of being bottom bitch and chief bottle washer on the water. Unexpected things happened and here I am 4 days later in Philadelphia, where I started for this company and spent my first 2 years. I haven't worked here in a decade or more... and I'm kind of enjoying it 

       Wednesday... was a mess.  It was so bad, the day went from being a miserable experience to funny to fine. Ironically, once I embraced the suck, the suck embraced me. 

     So I have an 0700 taxi arranged to pick me up from the decent Brooklyn hotel we crash at for crew change. We're expected to arrive to work ready to work so the company stows us in a hotel the night before crew change. 

 At 0650 the crew scheduler calls, tells me to cancel my taxi. There's no berth for me, she accidentally double-booked me for a spot that was already filled, and told me to stand by an hour or two. 

       The main driver here is that the HQ is headed for 2 months of shipyard work, where she'll be uncrewed the whole while. I am presently homeless, without a berth. 

     Already caffeinated, I pulled out my book (Nick Cole & Jason Anspaugh's 'Gods and Legionnaires') and sat tight as instructed. About 90 mins later I was told I would be Riding Over as a supernumerary on our biggest pushboat, basically being Johnny On The Spot for a week. 

 I moved my Very Considerable' pile of gear and food, since I'll be living out of my seabag for a while and anything I leave on the HQ will be stolen by the shipyard workers, and put most of it in storage on the tug. I volunteered to do some of the cooking and went to the grocery store with the Able Seaman, who doubles as cook, and we bought 2 weeks worth of groceries, planning out a few meals along the way.  We returned with his car packed with boxes of grub and I joined in in stowing it all. 

      It looked like a fun week. These guys were all friends and all of us, every one, were 50ish and grew up working class in the northeast. I talked more in the 2 hours I was there than I've done in years. We talked about everything gen X'ers talk about. Classic cars, joint pain, guys who we all knew who died, etc.  Good times. 

 And then the southern fleet crew scheduler called me... they needed me in Philadelphia, and could I get in a taxi right now, ASAP? 

    So that's bag drag number 3?  I load my mountain of crap in the taxi, and by then I am in a truly shitty mood and I can feel my pulse in my fingers and my ears, so I KNOW my blood pressure is jacked up.  Just... shitty luck. Seniority counts for nothing where I work, but I knew that. 

 My car driver is an African guy. I've never met him, but a few minutes after we leave he puts on some African gospel music in his home language. And this isn't the classics; no Abide With Me, no Amazing Grace... no, this is modern African synth pop gospel... And it's not pleasant to me.   But he's cheerfully singing along, quietly, and having a nice time, and I'm not going to fuck with a dude wants to commune with his maker. 

 Then, the drumming. 

 Yeah, he started drumming on the steering wheel. And singing. To a guy like me in that moment, absolutely pregnant with the anticipation of a bad time, it was like a knife in my ear. 

      At that point things went from shitty to a little funny. It was just such an ass-chapping morning, so truly trying in terms of little shitty things and being moved around like a fuckin' unwanted kid,  nothing at all truly bad, just mosquito bites to my soul... that it made me laugh a bit... and like that... I was ok. 

   2 hours later I was on a launch boat in Philly, to get to my assignment.   Crew change wasn't actually carried out on the pilot ladder, but the offgoing guy and I had our pre-transfer briefing while passing parcels and bags back and forth up and down a rope from the launch to the barge. 

         Turns out, though,  the other guy on here for the week is my buddy African Eric, who, along with my partner Big E, is in the running for the World's Nicest Man contest.  Eric and I have worked together several times and it's always smooth. He's enormously competent and a very positive person.  So big plus there. 

 And... I haven't worked the Delaware River/Chesapeake Bay area in about a decade I think. Can't remember. I had forgotten that this is a more pleasant environment to work in than NY harbor.  The ports and anchorages are much further apart than those of NY, where the average steam between load and discharge is about 35 mins. Here, it's 2 hours, and can run up to 8 hours.

 Our Philly fleet is having the same issues we do in NY. Too much work, not enough vessels. Still, the longer runs I find very refreshing. 

I watched the birds flying by today, out on deck. I haven't done that in years. 

      I may have not wanted to come here but I am glad I did. I'm still plenty busy, but it's humane here. 

Turnaround

 I got 4 nights at home only. So that sucked. 

   I had some very nice and relaxing moments. Not, perhaps, as many as I wanted or needed but they were there. Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife and my son all took some time off so we'd have a few whole days together, which we took advantage of, right up until the halfway point where things went to hell. 

 It was good while it lasted. Another death, and loss of a major contract in my wife's business, which means a financial hit. I'm glad we were all together, anyhow. Mutual comfort, mutual support. 

    All my bitching, I'm still aware that I've had it easier than many. I should be rolling with the punches more than I have been. I think that with shitty outcomes and increasing stress having risen slowly and steadily for a long while, my emotional reserves are being emptied, as things have more been like death by 1000 cuts than any particular major trauma. 

       Well, it's a terrible idea financially. But I'm taking time off starting 3 weeks from now.  Marathon, not sprint. I gotta get my shit together a bit. Tired of being a pill. 

Anyhow, to focus on the positive, I am headed to work, to earn, still vertical, and looking at the grass from the top of the stems, not the roots.    Well enough.

Airport

 So I'm at an airport burger joint, and I'm going home. 

     I'm going home a day late. I was already working a week of OT when I got word I had to attend some refresher training in-house at mh employer's NY offices. 

      Surprisingly, it was a good class. Apparently I needed refresher training, and it was a good way to have an office staffer who HAD to listen to our complaints, and being sailors, we always have many many complaints. 

       So I'm not thrilled to be going home for just 4 days and a wakeup but it is what it is. I'm not going back to the HQ when I get back either; she's headed to the shipyard for her 20-year maintenance cycle. I'll be whoring myself out for the next 2 months. 

    As  for what I've been doing, it's been a struggle. I've been pretty unhappy of late.  Hopefully going home will help. 

 Hell with it.