The Merchant Marine Express

We are en route to Galveston,Texas outer Anchorage. More on this a bit later.

Port Everglades turned out to be a quick discharge port. We discharged all 269,000 barrels or 11.2 million gallons of jet fuel in record time. It only took us twenty two hours to off-load the volatile cargo. While in Port Everglades/Ft. Lauderdale, I had the chance to go ashore and buy some necessities like shampoo, gum, trinkets and a water jug to sip from during those hot and humid days while running around out on deck during cargo. Turning valves, running back and forth through the cargo control room and its adjacent machinery space, occupying the loud and dirty diesel generators as they churned out valuable power for the pumps, can be exhausting! I’ve estimated that if I were to walk the entire length of ship ten times; returning every time to the control room, I would have covered almost two miles of steel deck in total, and per Watch. And with the two gallons or so of liquid guzzled in that amount of time, I think that would be a feat into itself. I’m sure glad we’re given only four hours, at a time, to work!

In other news, Third Mate Travis made a showing by returning to the ship by relieving his friend,Keith, the departing third mate. In fact, they were school pals, and Travis had offered to bring in Keith to fill his spot while he was away on vacation. It was nice,though, to see Travis again as a familiar face and one who knew the inner workings of this ship.

Captain Smith had a pizza party organized for the ship’s crew at a local pizzeria during the evening on Sunday. Arthur’s Coal Fired Pizza Parlor was the venue location and I’d say about ten crew members were in attendance. I happened to inform the Captain that I would be attending the festivities, as I quickly washed and made the mile walk from the docks to the restaurant, in less than fifteen minutes. I would not let an event like this, involving pizza, go without at least a presence on my behalf. Non of the other deck officers would happen to attend, so I was “Representing For the Deckies!” The captain was the only one still at the pizzeria as he was willing to wait for me to show up. I ordered a meatball and green chili and pepper pizza which was so good! The combination of sauce and cheese with the slight charcoal taste from the coal as it singed the edges of the crispy crust made this pie a great ending to a long and tiresome day. I considered it the reward for hard work.

We shoved off early in the morning on Monday, and just as we landed our gangway onto its familiar resting spot, the Bosun squawked over the
walkie-talkie that the Chief Cook was still ashore as he was spotted just strolling peacefully towards the ship! In quick fashion, the pilot ladder
was rigged, but as all hands were in their respective locations either on the bow or stern in preparation for undocking procedures, It would be, yours truly, who had to run all the way down from the Bridge just when I was about to answer the throttle commands from the Pilot, to help assist with the Chief Cook as he carefully climbed the thirty feet of ladder steps up onto the main deck. He had to climb onto the dock fender and wait as the ship slowly crept back to grab hold of the flexible ladder. I’ve never been witness to this sort of opportunity by assisting a crew member up a long ladder except for last year’s contract with the SS Petersburg. On board the ‘Pete’, the climb was only six or eight feet from the launch boat. This situation was a whole lot harrier.

Usually, all crew members know of what time the ship sails as is the requirement of posting a sailing time on a ’sailing board’ well in advance
and close to the gangway for all to see.

At any rate, our destination of Lake Charles, Louisiana, has been scrubbed as of late. We receieved word earlier this afternoon to anchor in Galveston until further notice by Citgo. We shut down the starboard engine to conserve fuel and to save on wear and tear.

Anything is possible for future loads of cargo. Louisiana may be the source of the cargo, but the delivery point facility has yet to be decided.

Enjoy your day!

Tags: Chemical Explorer