The longest taxi ride ever

 I'm at the airport. And I am alive. I don't know if it was worth living through what just happened. 

 Taxi from Bayonne New Jersey (The Paris of New Jersey, lol.) to JFK airport, Queens. Across New York. During rush hour.

 It took a while, obviously. But that wasn't the issue.  My driver was an old middle eastern man. And he... his breakfast was not digesting well, shall we say. 

        Yeah, the old guy had the hot death farts. I don't know what he ate but it went down fighting.

  And it was pouring rain so I couldn't open the window much and got immediately soaked for doing so. 

        And he kept doing it!  Like every 6-7 minutes, like a fucking metronome.   I swear, the temperature shot up 10 degrees in the car every time he ripped ass too. I'd feel the desert heat of araby, and then... I don't want to live on this planet anymore. God is not here. 

 For two hours. Two. Hours. TWO HOURS! 

 I got... marinated. God help me. It's in my clothes, probably. 

 Anyhow, I am at the airport and have a glass of whisky.  Washing the taste out of my mouth. Out of my soul. 

 

Last watch

 Halfway through my last watch. Home tomorrow.  Channel Fever finally hit me full on. I'm ready to GTFO. 

Night watch

 Well, I'm on nights now. Thus far it hasn't worked to my advantage-  virtually all of our active moves have followed me, seemingly regardless of which watch I'm standing. 

.   Since we have 2 HMFIC's on here at all times (myself and B, or myself and Big E, and B and Big E when I am at home), we din't have a master/mate hierarchy. Instead, we stand 12 hour watches, Day (0600-1800) and Night (1800 to 0600). Guys just coming aboard or getting ready to go home stand nights), and the day guy gets to be Head MF'er In Charge.  In this way, someone ALWAYS knows what's going on, and oncoming/outgoing guys have time to get caught up on what's going on. Daytime is when the people who wear ties to work generally are scheming and plotting and calling and bothering and business is done. Nights are usually just for things that people who do not wear ties to work get done. We're a 24/7 operation but the ties and suits are not.  Generally at night we have cargo or not but regardless the phone doesn't ring and emails ding near as much. It's a great time to get shit done like maintenance, paperwork, etc. 

    And that's the rub; just dumb luck that what free time there is, by chance, isn't falling on the night watch.   I mean it's fine, I'm not being pressed or overburdened but my own little honey-do list of things I want to get done is not as free as I'd maybe wish in terms of time to devote to the task. 

         Edit: ask and ye shall receive.  Prior to my posting this, the people who wear ties to work (long may they live; long may they continue to shit light on the heads of the damned) corrected an earlier error made on my schedule: turns out I will have half a watch off, which is good, as I need to put together a parts list and service a generator, and will even have time for a proper dinner. 

Channel fever

 Well, I finally am starting to disengage here on the HQ I guess, and thoughts of home are kicking in intrusively in my mind during the day. 

'Channel Fever' is the distemper that causes unrest when a sailor becomes absolutely with child to get ashore.

       I've almost doubled my record for time spent at work since leaving blue water work. The shorter much more intense days of working in-harbor and coastwise don't lend themselves to long hitches... and yet here I am somewhere past 110 days on here. I've lost count. 

     It was done purposefully for more than one reason, which may be why it hasn't been a slog. We're still throwing every spare penny at construction and outfitting now at the house in Brazil. 2 of the 4 buildings are structurally done and at the tail end of the cosmetic finishing stages. 2 to go, then landscaping and furniture. 

Fuck. 

Still, progress. And I can't do more OT this year as the War Department says so. She wants me home, and as I will have been gone for 10 months in 2025, I damn well need to listen. The house will wait. In the meanwhile, home in 9 days. Single digits. Feels good. 

 I find it hard to focus on plans while I am at home. While I need to cater to my wife's well deserved need to go out and be social as a couple, I also will need some days to putter around. 

In 2 days I switch to working nights, to let B get into the practice of being the swinging dick with Kick Me signs written on his forehead and ass.  The night guy is the 40 in the 60/40 leadership we run under as HMF'sIC. 

Say hello to the bad guy

 I caused some serious traffic snarls in Brooklyn the other day and I would hereby like to apologize FOR NOTHING. 

            The other day we took on a half-load of VLSFO (Very Low Sulfur Fuel Oil, a blend of #6 heavy fuel oil and ULS-MGO,  Ultra Low Sulfur Marine Gasoil, basically an ultraclean burning diesel-esque type fuel.  Thick goopy stuff, but the good stuff. 

   We took a half-load because we went waaaaayyy up a navigable but shallow creek near Brooklyn , Manhattan AND Queens. All told between us and our tug we squeaked in with 1 foot of UKC (Under-Keel Clearance) at low tide -we went in at high tide so we had 8 feet of UKC, but we also got to pumping off just 2 hours after tying up, so 12 1/2 hours later we left again at high tide, this time riding high and empty. 

   I'd never been there before, just knew it by name and that the creek is famously narrow, shallow and tricky, our equipment being larger than the tugboats and  oil, rock and scrap steel scows that work the canals and creeks. 

         Getting to the little storage tank farm we were going to, we had to pass under a drawbridge. We went through at night, so it wasn't too disruptive. 

     BUT, to leave, we had to sail, go under a different drawbridge

make a couple of twists and turns through narrow passages, old shitty pleasureboats rafted up, and rock and steel scrap barges rafted up against docks on either side, at times having to pass with just 10-15 feet on a side OR LESS to squeeze through... and after that, finally, a turning basin, a wide area, where we could do a 180, and 30 mins later, go under the SAME drawbridge but heading downstream and make a bunch of turns in narrow spots until the creek widened out where a bunch of derelict boats were stacked

Bro we could do SO MUCH METH on those

        And then go under yet another drawbridge, this one with a lovely view of the mile-long traffic jam we made, it being 10am, ON BOTH SIDES. 

    This bridge connects Brooklyn and Queens. And we fucked traffic all up. 

           Tight squeeze.  The HQ got them birthin' hips. 

      Still, it wasn't but another mile or twomand we were entering the Hudson river.  We passed summat' close abeam of the UN

 and a seaplane took off right next to us, which was something I don't see every day. 

  So,  cool little run. It's been a while since I saw something new here, for which I'm grateful.  We left Manhattan in our wake and went straight  to our usual loading terminal for the next cargo. 

Next

We wrapped up the last cargo the other night. 2 nights ago? 3? Time has lost much of its meaning here for me, but I know I've been aboard for over 100 days and go home pretty soon.  

   On completion at the ship, having transferred the oil successfully, the charterer sent us back to the terminal where we loaded the standard black oil portion of the blend we concocted, and there they filled us up with good normal VLSFO, Very Low Sulfur Fuel Oil, which we then pumped off overnight, right back into the tank we just loaded from, to dilute any residual blended fuel trapped in our pipelines, pumps and the sumps, the low points in each tank.   We flushed them right out.

 Then we did it again. Loaded up again, pumped it all off again. 

            Yesterday I got us all fast at a lay berth in Elizabeth NJ close to Newark airport, fairly early, maybe 11am? I then spent the next few hours on the phone and up to my buttcheeks (is buttcheeks one word or two? I'm a grammar nazi) in paperwork.  Our cargo management software, which is half logbook, half tallybook and half ledger (equaling 150%, yes. Because why not?), didn't like the way the office set up the recordkeeping portion of it, and decided to make up its' own rules, like deleting some pages, or transferring load calculations to discharge records and overwriting the existing discharge records, things like that.  So I got to spend a couple of hours correcting things, chasing numbers, and occasionally having it happen again until I had enough data input for the People Who Wear Ties To Work to work with. 

 

I'm sure I'll get 30 phone calls on Monday, which, I just looked, is tomorrow. No wonder breakfast was so peaceful today.  I only got 1 phone call inturrupting my meal. That's pretty good and the dude on the phone is a bro, we got on and off the phone in under 45 seconds, and that includes pleasantries... and that's because he was a tankerman like me, though younger, and his heart gave out, literally, so he had to go ashore. No BS, dude's got a good heart now, but it's not an OEM. He had to get a reemie. 

       There is one deep truism here I have to share, and everyone who works on boats knows this.   You can't take a crap, eat, or cook without a phone call or an alarm going off.  I don't make the rules, I just live by them.   Every one of these moments, cook, eat, poop, has an intermission where business gets done. 

       Knowing this, if I am waiting on an important phone call, I'll go to the head whether or not I really need to, just to speed things up. 

           Strangely, this doesn't work at home, although it IS true that I can't take a dump without someone, usually my wife, needing something or wanting to talk.  I'm not one of those guys who sits on the can playing with his phone until his legs go numb, either. I grew up in a larger household with one bathroom. I'm programmed to be quick. 

 I'm not sure how that's related but I'm sure it is. 

        

      So we passed a quiet night last night and a tug made all fast to us earlier this morning after breakfast.  In a few minutes we'll cast off for the next cargo... a load of VLSFO  destined for a power plant I think... but a dock-to-dock cargo, not a bunker job. Kind of a treat, no ship to deal with. 

The New Hotness

 Well, today we're taking part in a trial run of a new product being floated by one of the bunker suppliers thst feeds the US East Coast.  A new, more environmentally friendly component is being blended into the fuel.  Big E loaded the base fuel componant last night in 4 of our cargo tanks, leaving them slack, which is to say, partially loaded.

     At the moment we're under way to go load the fancy foofoo cutter stock into the same tanks, at a different terminal, and I will meter and blend the new product into each individual cargo tank, mixing it well, thereby creating magic a blended fuel with pleasing qualities for the delicate and fragile, and also Europeans I suppose.

     It's performative nonsense, a better, more sustainable and socially responsible way to pander to a bunch of screeching scientifically illiterate IMO Luddite autists   be good stewards of the earth, yo. Namaste and shit.  

I could go on but I am after all, the goof they chose to deliver this baby. I'm like a big, hairy, kinda otherwise retarded  savant in this one job... doula. 

Yes.  I am now the bunker doula. You may admire me now

 *scratches testicles*. 

     Ok, semi-serious now.  I'm not flattered that I was chosen to oversee this job but I absolutely am gratified. After all,  we're experienced, competent and really do take the process seriously on here. even when I'm cynical when I play games and assign meanings (that probably aren't there) to the people who actually matter in these things. Also, the HQ was available, and we really are the seniormost bunker crew in my employer's NY fleet now in terms of experience. In that respect I really am aware that I am here to represent the owner's interest in doing a job correctly, safely and efficently. My blog, online sarcasm, that's just my id taking a crap, in the exact same meaning and for the same reason a body does so.  

      As I am fond of saying, I don't give or expect credit for plans, just actions. Best I go be on about it then.