Having once again signed on I had an eventful month getting the show on the road with the least amount of time and we had headed for Singapore with just enough to make it to Singapore roads. The start was a bit rough with winds from our stern-quarters and as we approached Singapore I snagged a fishing net in the darkness just at the approaches of the Strait. The engine started vibrating and would not get up in revolutions so I shut it off and continued with 3 engines online.
Arrived 28th Dec Indonesia to Jakarta roads and circled there on one engine a couple of days before we got permission to anchor from the Navy. The bureaucracy was clearly a slow process and the Agent was not being very helpful, they offered berthing at Batavia marina where I think I would not be able to get of if I attempted to get in. At least then we were anchored and New year was fast coming and our filters dwindled very fast on the gensets. Agent could not source spares and eventually had to switch off the gensets. We sat over NY in blackout waiting for spares and provisions too as all our stuff in the freezer thawed (30/12-3/1). Cook made sandwiches as he could, toilet was off the railing and we took showers when it rained. All in all a very miserable start of the NY, it could only get better now. In addition I'm guessing we had our 2/E sending a complaint of the conditions to MCA for which I got a copy later on in my mail from Management. It was sods law, everyone tried to the their best except the Agents and we suffered for it.
Eventually we got filters on the 3rd Jan and some provisions to go. Then after abt 2 weeks at anchor a berth was arranged to get to sort out the fuel issue, we still changed filters constantly. We went alongside to a finger pier on the 15th January, JPPI, already fully occupied by various vessels, mostly offshore variety. The movement was another disaster, we had to get a port clearance to depart the anchorage from Sunda Kelapa in order to move to the Tanjong Priok district. As we moved the pilot was only the next day so I had to go anchor yet again to another anchorage. At JPPI we had a an external tank, a purifier and ppm filter sets so the dirty fuel was pumped out and purified via the ppm filters to another tank. All arranged with Mr Satrio, a local acquaintance of the Owners, as the Agents had no clue.
Meanwhile the empty tanks were opened and cleaned from whatever impurities that could be found. Finally all tanks were clean, we had 3rd party surveyors onboard from Intertek and Damen, samples had been taken from every tank and sent off. The discussion was if the tanks had been dirty on departure, I was not able to go into any tanks in Vietnam as they had already fuel in them, or if the fuel was bad. My guesstimate was a bit of both because the fuel was really brown already in the samples from Singapore and we already had a few fuel filter issues in Da Nang too.
Then agent came with another restriction that we could not go ashore and I did remind him of the MLC seafarers right for shoreleave. We went anyway and I think we got some shore leave passes later on. One afternoon I took some time off and went arranging provisions with our C/O at "Lotte" wholesaler (like Makro), the bill came out just a fraction of what had been delivered to us at the anchorage. We had all provisions loaded into a truck that the wholesaler arranged, it worked like Uber, pretty convenient. Our Director who also visited us here was being extracted by Agents several hundreds USD to get entry pass to the port when he just walked in. I think he didn't pay.
I did recommend dumping the fuel, cleaning tanks and start afresh but it echoed to deaf ears after the price for local fuel was ascertained, the filtered fuel was pumped back into the tanks and we left after about a month in Indonesia. The Agents antics made me very disappointed in Jakarta and I won't recommend for the best will in the world. Our 2/E resigned first and then later our 3/E resigned during this time and left, we got a British engineer to join us to replace the old 2/E who seemed to be partially demented. He had told the 3/E and C/E that he couldn't remember in the afternoon what they had discussed in the morning, I think it was for the best, bless his cotton-socks.
Port clearance to leave Jakarta was also a circus. I had to go see the harbor master and explain what we had done (emptied tanks, cleaned, filtered fuel, pumped back, added biocide, gotten spares and stores). Port Captain thought we had sunk at the anchorage so who knows what stories circulated about us. In the end he was happy with a statement and copies of our fuel delivery receipts and class certs. Agents again were of no help, I was not surprised as they were just a bunch of kids in their late twenties/ early thirties.
Then when we finally 26th January we departed Jakarta after having spent a month there we discovered the bottom had accumulated so much seagrowth that our normal economic speed had fallen abt 2 kts. We had enough filters, they still needed changing quite frequently, usually the normal frequency would be about 2 weeks, now it was like 2-3 filters a day. We pressed on and soon enough we were passing the Krakatoa volcano into the Indian Ocean. Fuel consumption and distance to go was high on our agenda with the slow speed we were having and if I would have any hair left on my head I'm sure there would have been a lot of gray hair to be gotten.
I kept going towards West from Sunda strait but on 28th Jan I slowed down to reduce consumption. Our hydraulics had given up and C/E found seawater in the system, we turned off the stabilisers. One day the RO plant pipe connection ruptured but Engineers managed to isolate the unit and use the plant on less capacity, we didn't have to start rationing water (we had drinking water in plastic bottles) for showers. One radar screen had given up at the Jakarta anchorage. One day the accommodation blacked out including A/C, took several hours with comm's to Vietnam to troubleshoot and find the issue, turned out it was a small 2A fuse in emergency circuit, luckily we had a spare onboard. Engineers cleaned up the purifier, was full of crud again despite the filtering we had done in Jakarta, possibly leftovers in the piping. The yard claims list was getting longer and longer.
We had kept course for Mathurin Island (part of Mauritius) as it was closest but fuel seemed a difficult issue, as we got closer it became clear we had enough of motion lotion to get us into Port Louis we headed that way. During the trip we had also checked out Diego Garcia for a possible stopover but there was nothing to gain, the information online is that you can stop there for repairs but you need to do it yourself, also no fuel available. On the 11th Feb we arrived Port Louis for fuel, some provisions and garbage discharge, I had fuel left onboard abt 5cubic meters (a day). The port was very organised, the garbage was off even before we had managed to tight up our mooring lines. Fuel came from a pipeline and provisions arrived very shortly after arrival. We also had divers to polish up our props and shafts in order to get better speed.
I took the chance to go for a stroll ashore and bought the crew Indian fare from a shop on the street. The town itself was a mix of old and new, one could see very old trees lining parks and old buildings, then more towards the port there was tall office towers and some bars although the society seemed to be more muslim. They even had a Chinatown that I walked through but I think the people had come there several generations ago. By evening we had completed the bunkers and propeller polishing, boys had Indian curry in their tummies, the Chilean contingent complained it was spicy and giving them heartburn. They were eating antacids with greatly suffering faces. Our speed was up to normal and was doing abt 12kts now.
The next day we passed Reunion, as we sailed by we could with binoculars see the coast dotted with whitewashed villas, it reminded me of South of France. Then we headed towards south tip of Madagascar and sighted the coast several miles off it. Couldn't hear the Lemur song though. Then I got the resignation of our new 2nd Engineer due to personal reasons. I tried reasoning and getting him time off but he didn't know when he could return so resignation it was. As we closed in on the African continent we started seeing land the weather was fine but bad weather was approaching rapidly, I increased speed in order to avoid the inclement weather about to hit the continent and arrived a day earlier.
Days went by very fast as the yard kept us busy, it turned out the hydraulic system was 2/3 full of seawater and 1/3 oil so it had to be dismantled totally, cleaned and put back together. Major job. We also had during the voyage gotten fuel oil results and it had not been the fuel bug but the fuel had oxidised, basically we had gotten bad fuel. The main engines had chugged it through without any issues but the caterpillar gensets started to be on their last legs, to top it off we had no spares either. As the patrolboat had been bought off the shelf she was now 10yrs old despite being "new" and so were the engines, stamped 2015.
Any queries into CAT spares gave us months of lead time so this now became a managerial issue and a worldwide hunt was started to find nozzles and in the HP fuel pumps for all 3 gensets. We had crew flying off for spares, our Director flew once off and took like 10 flights in 5 days to pick up parts. Also a courier was sent another time. Major disaster and lesson in keeping spares onboard. In addition we also discovered one of the rudder pump was knackered as predicted in Vietnam so it also had to be changed, we didn't have spare pressure regulators so they also had to be sourced, one was found in Russia.
Meanwhile as the predicted yard period rectifying issues had been like 12-14 days the weeks started piling up as Class would not let us depart (rightly so) with not properly working gensets on a transoceanic voyage so the spares had to be found and fitted. In the weekends we entertained us as best we could, bit of wine tasting trips to Paarl and Franschoek. Shark cage diving in Gansbaai. Dinners at Bossa on Milnerton beach (great sunsets and view of table mountain). The guys bought snacks and sweets for the upcoming voyage, SA was still quite cheap despite the issue with power shortages. Anyway, by 1st April (no joke) we got our full term Class certificates and departed Cape Town for Port Stanley in Falklands. It had been an eventful 6 weeks but finally we were on the last leg.
The last leg was quite exciting with a stopover at Tristan da Cunha and then being called for a Mayday mission in the eye of a near hurricane, it wasn't anything we had been looking forward to. Long story short we arrived 15th April to Port Stanley and faced all MCA wrangling, cleared it. Spent some weeks alongside sorting out issues and getting stores again.
As it wasn't enough one of our Chilean deckhands misbehaved and had gotten completely off his rockers, tried one evening break into a car, set light to a shed and broken into a restaurant. The next day we had the constabulary onboard showing me printouts and asking who this chap is. He was quickly carted off to the station and held in custody. As the investigation went on it was found he was guilty and also had a record in Chile so subsequently deported back home with a fine. Our Director then went on later to the broken in houses and issued apologies with some gifts and compensation for repairs.
Then it was time for our first patrol and we took off with our fisheries patrol officer onboard and basically cruised around the Falklands FOCZ waters entirely, we also did a sojourn into the international triangle between Argentina and Falklands, there were so many Chinese fishing vessels. We arrived back in good order for the naming cruise for Aimee Walker who named the boat. We were lucky with the weather and cruised off Volunteer point and Cow bay. On the 17th May I flew home for vacation after having handed over to a South African Captain.
As footnote on my leave I was terminated because the management company parted ways with the owners and so it was understandable they couldn't be my employer anymore. Same happened to all other crew as well and I got no call from Seagull about returning so I am guessing the salary scale changed drastically. Anyway, hope all the best for Lilibet doing the 15 year charter.
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