Third on the loose!

12/26/08- Leaving Singapore - Diego Bound

It has certainly been an interesting 48 hrs since my last vent/diary entry. We pulled into S'pore on Christmas afternoon.

I had the joy of doing most of the steering on the way in to port. The one redeeming quality of this ship is the fact that it handles fairly well. So, bringing her in wasn't much of a problem.

Buuutttt, speaking of problems. Yesterday morning, I was finally able to switch out a couple of the extinguishers that were in the worst shape. I did this with the Chief Mate's blessings. He is second in command under the captain. Well all Hell broke loose after that little task was completed.

It is the 3rd mate's job on board to take care of all safety gear. He run's a navigation watch and does safety, that's supposed to be all. This little wannabe captain got nine kinds of upset with me for moving those extinguishers. I am not sure to laugh at or worry about this dude. He is pretty pitiful. I had intruded on his territory.

He came up with all kinds of orders to do this and that without the understanding that though he is an officer on board the ship, I don't work for him. Some of you might recall that at times, I might be just a little teeny tiny bit stubborn. Hehe. Welllll, come at me yelling and screaming and wrong and see what happens.

This idiot with a license first told me I was fired (he can't do that), then I had to put the old faulty extinguishers back, and then that I couldn't leave the ship until I did. And on and on..... It was quite an impressive tirade. I just sat there smiling at him, telling him I don't work for him. He should talk to my boss if he needs me to do something. Somehow that didn't have the calming effect so desired.

That is a very brief synopsis of about 12 hrs of this toon going crazy over two moved fire extinguishers. If he had just asked in a nice way "Hey, could you put those back? We can go over them later." Or something like that, it would have been so easy. Nahh, he didn't. So I sat there like a mule on his haunches. : ))

Luckily, through all of this, my supervisors, the 2nd and Chief Mates are seeing that this guy needs to relax a little (understatement).

After docking, we had a few hours work bringing on new supplies. And finally, I was released and able to get into S'pore. I got into town around 2000 and was back by 2230. I had to get back on watch by 2345. So, not exactly a big night on the town.

But it was nice to get out, if only for two hours. I went out, found a nice cafe in China town ordered a meal, had a beer and relaxed. Just sat there people watching, enjoying not being around anyone from the MV Rust Bucket!

I worked till 0400, slept 20 minutes, got up and we undocked. I finally got back into bed around 0630 and they treated us with basically a day off. I got the best sleep that I have had in 22 God forsaken days on here. Now, it is back through the Strait and on to the Indian Ocean.