Ganked!

 Well, here I am. 

     So it's been a minute since I got the dread phone call of 'we need you to cover so-and-so on (insert vessel name) for a few days,' which some of us call 'getting ganked.' 

   I got ganked the other day. It's Sunday morning and I am not on the HQ. I'm in fact rafted up TO the HQ, tied alongside the HQ, but I'm master after God on a chartered barge my company is using. I got called in to do what I think is the last job while it's in my company's possession. It's a nasty, not well looked after thing. Think of a ghetto mechanic's loaner car and you'll know what I mean. Is it legal? Yes. Registered/ insured? Safe? Yah, pretty much. Yup. Is it clean? No. Is it quiet, smooth and tidy at least? Lol. Is there a risk of tetanus, impetigo, scabies? Oh, mais oui.

      I'm also getting a little Hard Lying pay for my trouble , to soothe the burn. I offered to give it to my port captain in exchange for not sending me over here, but no go. 

       It came down to the job we were doing yesterday. For reasons of us being old, reliable and most of all, available, my company, one of our charterers and a cruise ship company all for some reason like using B, Big E, and myself to bunker their latest class of cruise ship when it visits NY. Not that others can't do it; they do the job at times, but we get buttered up and battered and presented freshly washed, powdered and in Sunday best, when needed. Which, I mean, is mostly our shoreside staff patting our heads and telling us to run along, but hell, it's nice to be told you matter every once in a while. By which I mean, the first time in the  17 years I've been with my employer. 

     But yeah, to return to the matter at hand, it's weird. I don't like being ganked. Nobody does of course, but I find it particularly galling, even knowing it was the company's absolute right to get some work out of me, as the HQ hasn't been super busy. Still doesn't make it nice. 

          So I get told I'll be here for 3 days. Today is day 2. Tomorrow in theory will be my last day and as soon as I wake up the day after tomorrow I'll be free to head back to the HQ. In theory, anyhow. 

        In a very true way, this is also good for me. It makes me appreciate the hard work we've done to make the HQ a good place to live and work. 

    Unfortunately, my company also sent some old foreign guy to camp out on the HQ while I was away, just in case the HQ got a job assignment while I am away. Big E, B, and myself are all senior, and normally you'd just have 1 master aboard to be the big cheese, the PIC, da boss. The 3 of us together are a bit of a talent sink to have on one vessel, but OTOH our record is impeccable, and we can do the weird shit as needed, the jobs that have managed risks. Plus, I already told the office years ago that if they split up B and I, I'd be leaving the company shortly after. I can be unhappy anywhere, after all, and bitching aside, I'm happy where I am most of the time. I know too many guys who always look hollowed out; dead eyed, exhausted, drawn and pale, listless, depressed and anxious- guys who jump 8 inches off the ground when someone drops a book on the floor... so it goes when you can't trust your shipmates to not fuck the dog (screw up) when you're asleep, which means sleep is an elevated risk activity, which means quality sleep is elusive.  

 No.

       Everyone, EVERYONE at my job, screws up at times. Makes small mistakes. These days, it's a bigger deal to get a date wrong on a form than it is to damage a dock by hitting it hard, at least according to the bellyaching of the office workers who buzz around our heads like flies around a cow pie. On the HQ we each have our strengths and weaknesses. B is an observer- the guy sees EVERYTHING. Doesn't miss a thing out on deck, or on paper. He's a detail guy, but he also doesn't pick up a wrench unless he has to. Me, I'm the seamanship guy, and I have the deep bench when it comes to math, legal compliance and fixing shit myself. I also miss the details. I'm the guy most likely to not dot the i or to leave a rag in the toolbox. Big E is the logistics guy and morale officer He's got the inventory, supply list, and chain of custody stuff, and of the three of us, works hardest on the intangible things to keep us positive and proactive mentally. Of course we all can do the job, which is to sling oil. So, with two of the three of us always on board together, we have a near zero incident rate beyond the occasional act of God. So when I go to bed, I can rest easy that Big E or B Has Got It. If I get the dreaded knock on the door at 2am, it means that someone needs a hand, not a handholder. 

 Sometimes it takes a ganking to remember all that. 

Back at it

 Well, I'm back aboard the HQ. My first watch is a busy one, though we're presently waiting for a thunderstorm to pass before we head from the loading terminal to a ship waiting for us at anchor nearby. 

  My time home was just FULL. I'm not complaining, either. It was pretty much days of hard work interspersed with a lot of fun. I worked too much, ate too much, drank too much, got too much sun, swam too much... just all the too muches. 

   I bought a heavy gas powered pressure washer, which led to me discovering just how much deeper it cleans than the dinky electric one I had before, so while I expected that pressure washing the driveway, pool deck and the house itself was going to be a faster job, it actually took much longer than I expected, but the results were great. So that sucked up 3 full days. 

    I got some custom cabinet doors made to replace some in my kitchen that no longer fit after I installed a big stainless farm sink. Learning how to mill out for european hinges and get the alignment right was a giant pain in the butt but I got it right, thank God. 

 So, some befores and afters, now that it's all done. 

 Now I know why builders charge so damn much. Oof. 

    Not shown is that I also redid the laundry room, a guest bathroom, and the informal living room. Oh, and the dining room. 

 No before pictures, and it's not fully decorated yet, but my part other than furniture moving and paying-for, is done. 

 The downside of DIY'ing home things is that by the time you're done, you're just now getting better at doing them. 

 So yeah, all in all it was a satisfying time home. I'm really pleased with how the house looks, and if we didn't get to do all the going out and being social things, my brother came by a few times, we had a little party, met some new neighbors, and generally had good times. I'm gad in a way for a few weeks of 'freehab' aboard the HQ, w/ no booze, healthy eating, and a chance to exercise some muscles and rest my liver. 

 Back to work. 

Everything broke, but it's getting fixed

  Well I'm home and I'm running around like a cat trying to bury a turd under a marble floor. 

     Still, it's been good. A lot of little stuff is getting done. Home renovations are about all done. My kid has been in the yard flinging dirt and doing yeoman service getting shit done. It already looks so much better.  I pressure washed the driveway, pool decks, and the house itself but had to buy a new pressure washer as the old one broke. A pallet of sod had to get put in too, the front yard being bad enough to offend the HOA. The irrigation controller died. Pool vacuum is dying now. 

I gotta go back to work before anything else dies. This shit is getting expensive. 

 Still, it's been days of labor, and evenings of swimming and drinking w/the Mrs.  Good times. 

I'm tired, boss

 Workload's been pretty light. Seasonably slow, which has been good as we caught up on things on here, hosted the coast guard for our annual dog-and-pony show, etc. 

 I got ashore a few times. Got 5 mile walks in every time. 

 It's tonight and 2 more watches and I can go home. 

   The light workload undid some of the butthurt on my part given the musical chairs we're playing this month personnel-wise. 

 Really, all is well enough, just haint been in a writing mood. 

Blasphemy?

An odd thing. 

  Today we're loaded deep, alongside a really gaudily painted cruise ship. Graffiti-style hull murals for some tacky reason have become oh so de la mode for regular shore people. 

 This one today is particularly gaudy.

   Cruise ships generally don't have a good way for bunker vessels to moor alongside. There's never enough Panama Canal Chocks (recessed reinforced bitts in the hull to hang a hawser on, used also for Panama Canal transits, hence the name). 

  Today's ship was painted so eye-searingly chaotically, I couldn't see all the chocks at a distance, as some are painted over by the graffiti. 

      I had 2 inexperienced young deckands with me, both broccoli-headed Gen Z'ers. Nice kids, green. While I was talking with our two tugboats as we moved alongside, I was pretty frustrated about not being able to see the damn mooring points, and finally said something like 'Hey, we gotta get closer before I can figure out where to put her; this fuckin' paint is like Gay Camouflage.' 

 The tug captains laughed. The deckhands both got pie eyed, before studying their feet, visibly uncomfortable. 

      Now, my wife's gayest cousin is also the cousin I'm closest to. I really don't give a shit about what tickles anyone's pickle, but we have no sacred cows out here and everything is fair game for humor. 

 The kids will be fine. They're figuring it out. Maritime work isn't for the thin-skinned and this, along with not belching into the VHF microphone unless someone you like is talking, is all part of the process. 

Workflow

 My partner B came in on time by Wednesday and it was good to have him back on the HQ. The new guy was wearing thin. Not a bad guy at all, just... not a compatible personality and not a 'Can Do' guy workwise, which is what our people are on here. 

 Big E is home now for a few weeks, and it'll be my turn next month. 

 We were pretty quick to settle into routine, which felt good. Today I finished loading us deep; tonight and tomorrow we'll be discharging and hopefully Sunday will be free. 

    As far as ship traffic goes, it's been seasonable. Home heating oil season in the northeast is winding down, and  April/May isn't usually unduly busy, so I can't see any impact from world events from my micro perspective, so you'd have to ask someone else for the macro. 

I pickled stuff

 Yesterday I was so free at work that I made marinated mushrooms and 2 jars of dill pickles.

      We're experiencing a lull in demand for bunker fuels here in NY harbor. There's plenty of traffic, don't get me wrong, but it's mostly ships with onboard exhaust gas scrubbers, so they can buy the cheaper shitty oil and burn it, whereas the HQ carries the good shit (Very Low Sulfur Heavy Fuel Oil) and also the best shit, Ultra Low Sulfur Fuel Oil, the hi-test, which is just retardedly expensive right now.  And diesel, which most ships use to fuel their generators in port. 

   Well, with the fill-in guy having figured out that I'm not a talker, and free time, yesterday after some morning logkeeping and my weekly environmental hazard inspection (looking for signs of leaks in pipelines and joints, cracks in welds, examining anything that has oil in it, and inventorying the spill cleanup lockers, deployable oil booms, etc etc...),  went for a 5 mile walk through Brooklyn, stopping to go to church-good for the body, good for the soul, and also got some groceries (bad for the wallet, holy shit), then returned to the HQ, where I made a big stir fry for lunch, smoking out the galley with my giant ass wok. After lunch I pulled out my spices, some herbs I bought, and a jug of vinegar and made marinated mushrooms and dill pickles. 

 I put too much flaked red pepper in the mushrooms. Just a pinch adds a subtle pepper taste, but a pinch and a half was too much, but too late. Gonna feel that. 

If you know, you know. 

 And today? The same, just moreso. Gonna walk again and maybe spend the afternoon in the generator house for spring cleaning. It's too hot in there in summer to work if I don't have to, so now's a good time.