slammed

We're on track for a record-breaking month in terms of tons of cargo carried here at HAWSEPIPER's Afloat Global HQ/money factory. We're moving oil, folks, and we're moving ALL THE TIME.

   Last January was also a blockbuster. So it goes. Seems to be the busiest month for bunkering around the NY area. My guess is that it's a combination of restocking from Christmas, popular late-model cars being shipped after having been well-received in their new model-years' debut a few months ago, and home heating oil season. Add to that the increased traffic headed to  Albany NY via the Hudson river (Albany is a convenient pipeline terminus for shale oil from the Midwest), and you've got some ship traffic. Well, that and my employer locked down another two contracts from bunker suppliers here in NY... which, I think, pretty much makes all of them, now.

 So business is booming here in the land of the ice and snow.

     Down here on the shit end of the stick, practically speaking, this means that we're BUSY. Most of the time, nonstop. Jobs are stacked up in a queue, and we're perpetually late because terminals are also crazy busy, ship's engineers don't give a shit, and the ONE boom boat that services the entire port of Bayonne NJ is apparently run by a narcoleptic.  Seriously, Bayonne is all about the terminals, and they have ONE frigging boat to run oil-spill boom around vessels while they load (a legal requirement), and, while it's admittedly frustrating to lose time and sometimes work because we can't get unboomed, at any time there might be 6 ships and 10 barges actively loading and unloading at the same time. That's some serious business.


   What this means for us is pretty much we roll out of the bunk, eat, caffeinate, look over the cargo plan, and relieve the watch, stand our watch (loading or unloading, we finish, the tugboat comes, we make them up, they bring us to the next job. In between we scramble to scan, fax and scribble, filing one job and planning out the next. Then the other guy wakes up, eats, caffeinates, looks over the cargo plan, relieves the watch, and you shower and go to bed. Repeat.


 Not a lot of time for fun or to wind down, but so it goes. Every couple of days, there will be a delay or 3-4 hours between jobs while you wait for the tide so we can go into a berth, and then I scramble to do maintenance and catch up on paperwork and the hundred little things that need doing. I never quite catch up, but I don't fall far, far behind, so it's doable.

   Am I complaining? No. This is how we pay for the quiet weeks later in the year, and, so far, once a week I have a major delay or a simple but large job where one of us can run ashore and stock up on food, pick up supplies and drop off bags and bags of paperwork. Also, trash, which also comes in bags and bags. Since it's so busy, only gasoline barges and guys with major maintenance issues get shore access, so everything is done remotely, by tugboat.

 Yesterday was my turn to go ashore, and it was OK. It could have been glorious, but I managed to get some black oil on a brand new shore-going jacket and my best pair of jeans. Dammit, now I've got a $150 set of work clothes. So it goes. That wasn't enough to stop me from getting a quick 5-mile walk in and to stock up on green stuff before running a couple of pallets of boxes and bulky stuff like mooring lines and a new liferaft  back out to the anchorage, where, on arrival, everything was sent up via crane, stowed, and I jumped into the shower, then bed.
 So, after that, back to the routine. Wake up, eat, caffeinate, check the load plan, relieve the watch.

heh

Crew change tomorrow, so I'm feeling blah. Still a few weeks to go. Here's something to brighten up your day.

Renew, review

So, after just 36 hours on board, I left HAWSEPIPER's Afloat Global HQ/prison barge and took a train to Philadelphia to attend a company-mandated Tankerman PIC refresher class. I did NOT do this with enthusiasm, as I am an active professional who oversees somewhere around 10-20 cargo transfers a week for 38+ weeks a year. Hell, I don't need a review, right? This is how I make my living, after all.

 Well, it turned out to be a good thing. I was mildly ashamed of how tentative my knowledge of legal matters could be, when it came to the laws that don't impact my day-to-day operations. Same with some health and safety procedures. The same strident censure I have handed out by the bucket in regards to how complaisance kills should have probably come with a mirror for me to look into sometimes. I missed some stuff, and was rusty on others. For the most part, I'm on my game, but we're not talking about esoterica. Things that I should have known in the back of my mind (safety factors related to half vs. full-face masks, for example), rather than needing to reach for a reference were identified. All in all, it helped me quite a bit, and was a pleasant reminder of the stakes that are at play in the course of my average day.

 So, yeah. I'm glad I was there. Aside from the class, there was also the opportunity to network, touch base with folks with whom I have a decent phone relationship but have either never or rarely met in person... stuff like that.

 I also got to see that most of the other PIC's in the class were evaluees or new tankerman. My company is in the middle of a massive expansion, much like the one that saw me hired 6 years ago, and there was an ominous warning that those of us who weren't utter fuckups (which I assume, but can't confirm includes myself) were going to be mentoring some new hires here and there, something I look forward to with the same relish I usually reserve for colonoscopies or dysentery. So it goes.
       I returned to NY last night, and crawled into the bunk. Between the anxiety of starting another tour, travel, sleeping in a hotel in a bad neighborhood (about 20 police cruisers showed up at 0200 at my motel to break up a fistfight in the parking lot, then stayed and blasted their radios and blue strobes until about 5)... well, not much sleep these past few days.

     I was looking forward to some sleep yesterday afternoon, but it was not to be. Swells, blowing winds, insane cold weather and some noisy-ass visiting engineers from a chemical ship saw me with a nice rest, but little sleep. I'll hopefully fix that this morning after 0800.

 For now though, it's 5 degrees outside. That sucks.

miles

Busy few days. FL this past week, NY on Saturday and Sunday, Philly on Mon/Tues, and then back to NY tues night, plus a boat ride to NJ. My ass is international.

Now to get caught up on my rest. Schedule's pretty busy.

the year in review

The New Year was only 30 minutes old when I turned, hugged my wife, and said that this was the first New Year's Eve where my overweening sentiment wasn't "Well, I hope this year is better than the last, anyhow. Can't be much worse."

2014 was the best year I've had since I was old enough to ride a bike, I think. My wife and I were brought closer together by the stresses of a cross-country move, my kid loves where we live now, and between new friends and new places, I'm looking at the world through a different lens these days. I didn't get too much actual time with my family, but the time we did have was fantastic. I don't see me having much more time with them this year, too, plans being what they are, but I am finding that the time we do have is carrying me forward.
 My health is under control. I weigh 85lbs less than I did last New Year's. Well, 75lbs, now, as I wasn't dieting for the holidays, but am already back at it, as of yesterday when I returned to NY for work. This is the year where I have to tone up some. Doesn't seem as daunting as the diet itself.


        Contrasting with friends, associates and family, I had a great year, and feel a little guilty about crowing about it even here, in my space. My mom's general health was under assault last year, one of my brothers was badly injured with life-altering severity, friends have gone through chronic unemployment, health crises, lost parents... and I had my head down, cursing all around me because I was working too much, which, on reflection, was pretty shitty. I should have been on my knees thanking God for all I have.

 Which I did, while I was home. Reality being what it is, this high point won't last, but this year saw plans I had in place for 15 years coming to fruition after thousands of days of agonizing, sacrificing and second-guessing. I have the foresight to be thankful to God above for what I've been given, especially for the ability to work towards what I want.

 It wasn't all fun. I spent the past year working 1-2, sometimes 3 months at a time, then coming home for 6-7 days before going back to sea. 
   One of the single largest fights I have ever had with my wife came about as a result of family conflict. At terrible cost to myself and my family, in terms of lost time, I spent several months at sea this year, nonstop, to pay for the life-saving surgery for my mother-in-law in Brazil, because her able bodied son didn't have the money (no sin there. Times are tough), but  wouldn't borrow money to pay for her surgery. But he spent enough money at the Apple store to buy plenty of toys.  I had just moved my family, so we didn't have the cash on hand, either.  So I borrowed it, and spent 300 days of the past year at sea, partially as a result.

 The fight didn't come from money issues. The fight came from when her brother thanked God for making his mother's surgery possible. I can't remember what I punched, but I remember it breaking spectacularly loud, and shouting that the 'stupid bastard pronounced my name wrong. Thank ME for your mom still being alive!"  Aside from the blasphemy, the broken stuff and the spending the night feeling like a dick, I think the point was made, and here, several months later, I've apologized to my wife, and God himself. Not the brother, though. Guy can go eat a dick.
         And that was another good thing about 2014. I spent more time telling people off who needed it. Internet heroism aside, I've been conflict-averse to a fault in the past few years. That ended, too. Working too much gave me a short fuse, and that's not a good thing, but, on reflection, some of the people I blew up at really had it coming, and I have been able to keep from apologizing when I didn't mean it. The apologies I've given, and there have been too many, are all legit. I really am sorry when I say I am.

 So, yeah, in the lifelong list of who can go and eat a dick, there were some additions, but 2014 is not on that list.

back at it

I'm back at work, launched right into it for a few days. I've got meetings out of town for a bit next week, so I'm only here for 48 hours before again setting out. No stops at home this time, though, just an overnight in Philly.
I'm back at work, I'm cold, it's 33 and raining. Not fertile ground for posting.

almost there

Couple of days to go on my vacation. Back to work this weekend.

 What a time it has been.