Having signed off last April I knew that the stay in Singapore was over and also my counterpart resigned for landbased work, I was now the senior Captain but it didn't look good for the future as both Chief Mate's that I had were not considered mature enough to be promoted and relatively new in the Company.
Having signed on last October as Chief Mate we got the news of a new acquirement by Conning shipping, an old 2nd hand cruise ship made in Denmark. It was all crewed by Ukrainians, cheap as chips as was also told by the Technical Manager, Mr Yeung, that they can't afford us anymore. Bit of a pity to hear it but as usual it is the figure under the red line that matters.
Having been at it for 10 years in total I had finally completed my studies, at least for now. The universal day in Finland was that on the last day of May all schools closed for summer and students got their end of semester reports. I had been doing my Captains ticket for past 2 years now but the overall "process" started in 1984 when I joined Åbo Navigations Institut's general ratings course.
