HAWSEPIPER: The Longest Climb

 I don't think I have ever appreciated the HQ, including HQ #1, 2 AND 3 as much as I did this past Wednesday. 

       I spent 2 weeks on the rental bunker barge, and I returned 'home' to the HQ  with fresh eyes and a surprisingly uncynical view, here on week 7 of this trip. 

     Lord, the HQ looked good. Gleaming decks in gloss black, the cabinets with gray trim, the clean and wide galley table with proper fiddles for keeping food off the deck... all of it. And my room, with it's homey smell of not mildew and the particular white noise of my fan...   yeah.   

       Anyhow, it was good to see the HQ with fresh eyes. I remember how upset I was when B and I were reassigned here and the existing crew kicked off, with the exception of Big E, who is one of the OG's, having been on this, HQ #3, for over 10 years. 

      Speaking of, HQ #'1, 2, 3 AND this one, #4 are all turning 20 next year. They're at the end of their expected service life. That's a whole post in and of itself. Thanks to good builders, a great naval architect, and an owner who believes in proper maintenance, all 3 of my existing assigned homes here have more life in them and startlingly low metal loss rates in the hull plating, meaning that the hull plates are damn near as thick as they were when launched. Next spring's shipyard will see that remeasured, although I wouldn't be surprised if thickness loss was just  another 1% after the last 5 years. But yeah, another post. 

       When I got back aboard, after putting away my stuff, I just sat and caught up with big E, in the way we normally do, but this time instead of him downloading all the news, gossip and necessary business my way, I shared my experience with the rental barge, and then almost made E throw up when I took off my socks and showed him my raw hamburgered feet.   As I mentioned in the last post, the rental barge had a serious shower pan leak, and standing water was trapped under the tiles on deck, and would seep up above deck when you stepped on the deck tiles.   So we had a neverending supply of stagnant water, constantly refreshed, which smelled like a bible story and formed a conferva soup of animalculae and fungi. 

   Anyhow, that's the story of how I got raging athletes foot all the way from the tips of my toesies to my 'taint. 

       My first night back on the HQ, I had just enough time for a 2 hour nap and then it was time for watch, and I jumped in hard, as we were busy. I was still waxing orgasmic for the seamanlike and well-cared for layout of our equipment and such, and just so happy to be back on a familiar deck that was mine that I didn't even bitch when it started to rain it's ass off. 

        Despite the fact that I've always chosen work that keeps me outdoors, I have a particular hatred for working in the rain. I just hate it. Except for Wednesday night, when the heavens opened, and I gave exactly no shits whatsoever. Me, clumping around in my winter weight Grundens foul weather gear that weighs no shit about 15 lbs in the insane boiling heat. I was sweating so much that it was competition for the rain as to which could get me wetter, and after a time I just hung up the rain gear and got rained on and cooled down. I'm tired of heat syncope and other delights and not being able to piss but a couple of ammonia smelling drops after waking up, despite sucking down 3-5 gallons of water a day. 

   But Wednesday night? I didn't care. I was just buoyed up. And when my watch was ended, I crashed into bed, waking up in the weird position I fell asleep in 7 hours later, with my kindle still on my chest. 

   So here I am on Friday night now, well in the mix, and it's been almost nonstop, with just tonight's 90 minute break between finishing loading and the next tide, when the current slows enough for us to sail. 

  I'm happy, anyhow. 

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    So my good friend and shipmate Tim, a very talented tugboat captain, has a very popular youtube channel that you should check out. 

      www.youtube.com/@TimBatSea

         Go check him out. Tim's a hellaciously good tugboat handler, and in one of his more recent videos of him rafting up a loaded bunker barge to an empty oil tanker swinging at anchor in high current, you'll hear an annoying voice on his VHF radio, and Tim says nice things about the retarded tankerman stumping around proving that he's much too nice a person, and then you realize that the sexy looking and seamanlike bunker barge is the HQ and the annoying disembodied voice and dumpy tankerman is myself. 

   I truly have a face made for radio and a voice made for silent movies. 

 But seriously, check out Tim's channel. He's a great guy, and the little life lessons he imparts while working his tugboat are always worth listening to. I'm happy that my first appearance on his channel involves a good talk on how being politically polarized should never be a bar to friendship. 

 Halfway day today here in OT exile.  I am still on the floating shitbox tetanus factory leased barge we're using. It's still awful here. I usually can find one nice thing to say about any boat or barge I work on. Oh, she's old but solid. Yes, it's got problems but she's safe and clean. 

    This place has nothing. But so be it. As I discovered last week, if I dwell on the negatives, I'll just start screaming and possibly not stop.   So far, still got 10 fingers, 10 toes although of course I immediately got   a magnificent case of athlete's foot despite putting enough bleach on the decks to sear my eyes and lungs to well done. 

    In the intervening days, it's been daily work parties to improve sanitary conditions and livability commensurate with the knowledge that I don't have to come back here except on a volunteer basis, and other than the stagnant standing water that seeps up between the deck tiles nonstop (the shower and I suspect the overhead (roof) are not what they could be), it's as clean as soap, scrubbing and ritual bleaching can make it. 

    Honestly, it's not pleasant, and the deck machinery is much of a muchness with the rest of this turd, but I'm getting by.  The OT is nice anyhow, and it's been busy as hell, so I am not being left to marinate in my own shitty mood.  Knowing what I agreed to and why and where I am, a positive attitude is really helping out. I'd be exhausted if I was this much of a ray of fucking sunshine every day though. Sure as shit, I'm burning, if not calories than mental... something, to do this. Spiritual mana?   I dunno. I guess I can do what my nature suggests and just wallow in all the negatives, or I can do what I'm doing one more week and cash the next check with a smile. 

  OK, crew change day was yesterday, but as planned, like a fool I did not go home. I am 'working over,' doing some overtime on another bunker barge for 2 weeks and then going back to the HQ for my regular 4 week hitch. Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife, OTOH, is keeping the home front down, and by keeping it down, I mean working 85 hour weeks while I'm away. 

        The barge I'm on? It is the single worst maintained and poorly made vessel I have ever had the extreme misfortune to ever step aboard, without exaggeration. Oh, it won't sink or roll over, it's sound as  a pound in the hull. Same hull as the HQ, in fact and those shipwrights at that yard really knew their shit. No, the hull is fine. Everything else sucks, though, it's an absolute dog to operate and the living quarters are both filthy and a crime against humanity. 

 I can say that because we don't own it. It's a rental. 

 You know what, though? I'm only here for 2 weeks and I can hack it and then make subtle cruel and snide comments to my superiors every time I see them for the rest of the year. 

 I'm a glass half full kind of guy.  

        My shipmate on here (there's just a crew of 2) had what I think might have been a panic attack when he saw what this is. Apparently he was offered this turd as a home, a permanent berth for him, an experienced and reliable tankerman.  I can read faces. I'm not autistic. The poor guy stepped aboard and there it was.

God is not here.

      The poor guy really was deeply upset that he had gotten the equivalent of a box of dogshit in the mail after being told a present was coming. So upset in fact, that it pushed my own cynical loathing through a full rotation, 360 degrees, and I arrived back where I started determined to make the most of it and be of good cheer myself. I'd never suggest to the guy that everything is not so bad, because it is, but I spent 3 hours cleaning the galley after my watch, and another 5 this morning cleaning the working area (there being no galley table, as there is a small table for two that is both the galley table and the office, lol. And all covered with grime, oil residue, mold and filthy stagnant water underfoot on the crumbling galley deck. 

Whatever. It's temporary and I'm getting overtime. I'll survive probably, until the mold gives me black lung. 

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   On the upside, I got some new pictures of the still-looks-like-present-day-Gaza  construction project on my home in Brazil.  And, as always, I got, for some reason, lot's of pictures of The Hole in the yard. 

           I have no idea why, but the builder is inordinately proud of one in particular of the deep buried columns I had poured before they lay the slab of the annex to the house. I don't know why, but the guy loves to send me updates on this one of 6 footings.  The annex will eventually be 2 stories, but we're just building the first floor now to get it done in time to visit this year or early next. Nonetheless I had them pour the foundations and supports for a much larger, heavier building.  The corner column, however, is in an awkward spot, close to a very tall unfinished wall between my neighbor and I, and there's no easy way to get a small excavator there, the footings for the pool, a separate water fountain and bamboo  garden already having been laid for some reason. So one of the columns is being laid by hand using concrete and rebar and a shovel rather than an excavator and forms.   

 So, in the back yard, as you walk out the back door of the house, there's a covered  outdoor kitchen with gas burners, a large wood burning brick oven with a steel rotisserie unit in it, plus a smoker and sink, cabinets, etc etc all built to entertain 20-30 people easily, and 50+ in a pinch, my wife's close immediate family numbering in the 300's or so.  On the far side of the outdoor kitchen is the annex, a bathroom and bedroom and sitting room, all moderately sized. The annex is where Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife and I will stay, the big house being mostly for her mom and her caregivers (my mother in law is a character. Blind as a bat and something of a black widow), my nephew who's a long-haul trucker in Brazil and will act as caretaker for the property, and my kid and assorted guests, when visiting.  

the annex, once complete. roof of the outdoor kitchen to the right.

  I have no idea why the builder sends me updates with a description of the work done that week, but the pictures ALWAYS include the current state of The Hole. 

   The Hole must be looked at an admired before the weekly update is complete. Every week. 

Magnificent. Just look at it.

And a week later

Admire it. Love it. The Hole is Everything.

Yeah, you fill that hole.

 Now I don't do much social media. I got out of Facebook after one of my nieces blew up at me online over a comment I made over the abortion issue about two years ago.  Now, I am pro-life without exception and without reservation. I'm even anti-death penalty, because nobody with an net worth over a certain amount ever gets to ride the lightning or take a hotshot in the antecubital. Until we have parity between rich and poor when it comes to putting the lights out on assholes, I'm for not giving the government power over life or death.  And this is not to say that I'm opposed to individuals doing what is needed to preserve life and property. Good fences make good neighbors, but as Vlad Tepes showed, Bad Neighbors can make  Good Fences. 

 But yeah, after damn near losing my niece, who I love, believe to be honestly wrong, and do not wish to lose, I deleted my facebook account. Social media is just social masturbation, a shitty substitute for having relationships with people.   I did keep Instagram, though, because it's mostly just pictures and video clips and the algorithm knows what you want. In my case, boobs, guns, and boats, and nothing else. 

     ... or it did. The coprophiliacs at Meta have realized that negative reactions create more clicks than positive. Somewhere along the way Instagram started steering me towards things I don't like, am not interested in, or don't tolerate and don't want. Around 6 months ago, I started seeing videos of people dying, LGBT issues, things for sale, or vapid retarded ugly and wealthy white people with weird colored hair saying the most foul, vile and absolutely stupid shit.  Less boobs, less guns, less boats. But when I did see those things, it was posts that were negative on the subject.  I am a boobs-positive person at my core. And to a lesser extent, I am a gun nut and boat nut too I guess. Either way, Instagram has become an exercese in Doom-Scrolling, where every interaction made me less and less happy. 

     I started saying things that were less polite about the things I was seeing. I started getting my comments deleted as a result. And that's fine. Life is hard enough without me getting my jollies being shitty to some stranger just because they were shitty first.  But it just kept getting worse. More and more egregious shit.  Within 2 minutes, while scrolling the gram doing my morning business  (I like to pump bilges on the seat of ease on waking up, start the day off positive), I would see somebody die or some 16 year old in a $200 shirt go on about why capitalism is bad. 

      I took it too far last month and used many of the new no-no words , any one of which trigger an instant automatic post removal. Using too many of them at once flags your account, turns out. Well, I got creative and used all of them at once (to be fair, on a morning where my morning poop was disappointing, it was raining and the first thing I saw was some fat hideous landwhale singing about how sexually stimulating her abortion was), and my account got deleted about an hour after I got the notice that my post was removed. 

   Well, that was a bummer.  But maybe I had it coming. And it was nice to have a few days where I wasn't doomscrolling and dealing with the overwhelming negativity. 

        2 weeks ago I started a new account on Instagram, and recontacted family. Keeping it light, not engaging in anything political, and going more or less boob-free, too. Nothing risque in the least.  Barely even PG, honest. Within 2 days I got a post saying my account has a 7-day ban for sharing my account with a service that farms likes and subscribers for you.  What the hell is even that? 

 Turns out, shallow terrible garbage people can share their account with foreign companies that bump up your subscribers using thousands of fake accounts so you look more popular. What kind of retarded guttermuppet trashbag even does that? I didn't know it was a thing. 

    Well, there's no way to say "hey, that's wrong, I didn't do that shit." so I took my ban, and a few days ago it passed. By then another dozen or so relatives and coworkers wanted to follow me. Great, now I could say yes. The algorithm can't feed you negative shit if you don't respond to anything, after all.  

 Except the next day, the ban came back for another week. Same reason. 

    I'm pretty sure I'm on a blacklist for thoughtcrime. 

   Well, jokes on them.  Turns out, by remembering to bring my reading glasses with me as soon as I get out of bed, I can read a quick page of whatever book I'm reading while on the Morning Seat.  I tend to read fiction almost exclusively, and I'm not into tragedies, so I'm back to being a big fucking ray of sunshine even before the caffeine hits.  Honest to God, I actually do feel a bit sunnier. I mean, I knew that social media is a cancer on the soul, but this is hard data here.  And when launching the Brown October of a morning, I am more apt to have a positive experience.     'Nuff said. 

 Well, it's Saturday, God turned the heat on, and we're loaded deep here at the HQ. 

       Today was not looking like a good day. The first heat wave of the season is here in Satan's Anus 

 New York, and the weather is actually more moderate by far at my house in South FL. Sadly, I am not at my house in South FL, I'm here in Sodom New York. 

 The original plan was for back-to-back cargo discharges to two different ships, both getting a modest sup of heavy oil and diesel oil, which would take up my entire day, and given the volumes in question, requiring me to be out on deck broiling in the sun and stop-gauging the tanks for much of that time. 

       It's a funny thing about oil tank vessels. Electronic gauging systems are not that accurate. Not accurate enough, anyhow, in dealing with a high-value commodity like oil.  Oh, we're no paragons of accuracy in the trade, mind; nobody raises an eyebrow at a couple of barrels difference or a few tons here and there. What's 10 grand USD between friends, right?  Fun fact, after completely sucking the tanks dry when I was carrying gasoline or diesel 15 years ago when homeported in Philly,  we used to be able to fill up everyone's vehicles with leftover gasoline from the pipelines and sumps in the tanks. Just siphon it out with a whiz-bang pump (a Wilden pneumatic diaphragm pump).  This ended of course when some greedy shithead started filling up barrels in the back of his truck to take home, and got hisself pulled over carrying explosive hazmat in the Chesapeake Bay Bridge tunnel, which frowns upon things that go bang on their property.   I bet that guy is probably just getting off probation now,but for a time it was nice. Whoever happened to be at the dock that day got topped off. The oil left in the pump sumps in the tank and in the pipelines is either written off if it's not something that can be measured, or vacuumed out and removed forcibly by a tank cleaning barge if the next cargo going in that tank is not compatible with the one before.  You can ignore a barrel or two of diesel in 50,000 barrels of gasoline, but you can't ignore a barrel or two of gasoline in 50,000 barrels of diesel. In one case, the engine will run smoother. In the other, the engine will blow up, and has been known to blow ships in half in fact, when gasoline gets in to heavy fuel oil. burnt by the ship's engine. 

      So yeah, tank depth gauging is not accurate enough for what we need, and requires constant recalibration just to be a rough guide. We use multiple redundant systems to be sure we have what we want for oil, but all boils down to the Mark 1 Eyeball being the most accurate arbiter of volume. Every 1/8 inch in every tank has a corresponding volume associated with it, and as pipelines, internal framing, pumps and the shape of the hull vary, every tank has different values at a given height off the bottom. This is measured accurately enough that it's not unusual to find 1/4 or 1/2 inch difference of the total height of the tank itself, from bottom to top between port and starboard tanks next to each other. Tank vessels are built in blocks, and the blocks are assembled level, not plumb I think .I always was satisfied with a 1/8 inch plus or minus error in measurements for the few skiffs I've built, but model ships which tend to be about 4 feet long, of which I've built a few, they've got to be within a 1/16 where it doesn't matter and a 1/32 where it does. So I guess, when dealing with 300 feet of hull, a quarter or half inch of warp in the steel is what they have to deal with over long runs of welded material distorting. At any rate, hand measuring oil depth in the tank using a measuring tape with a weighted bob on it, or a sealed gauging gun (with a window for you to see the tape and  a hand crank to lift or drop it so you don't let vapors out) still means the eyes make the final measurement. 

           There are flowmeters that, when calibrated and adjusted for density of the oil, are now quite accurate. This was not the case in the past. In places in the world where fueling is a matter of lying, negotiating, bribing and fighting and the numbers don't matter as much as the skill of the parties involved in lying and negotiating, a not-super-accurate flowmeter isn't a big deal.  Here, we care, and accusing someone of being the scion of a long proud lineage of lying whores,  well, I will likely consider knocking such a man over and stomping on his head until it either changes shape or he apologizes politely with my size 12's testing the load bearing capacity of his temple. 

 So no, my employer did not see fit to outfit us with flowmeters and a criminal defense lawyer on retainer.  It would be nice, though, set up the job and sit in a cool cargo office and watch numbers tick by. But no, instead we hover over tanks, and with a gauging tape and bob, chase the surface of the oil down and shut the valves when we achieve the proper depth to take a certain volume out of that tank. Then repeat in other tanks, the volume being dictated by the total amount desired, and the tanks chosen based on keeping hull stress down (leaving some tanks full, some empty and some partially full puts strain on the keel. The hull will flex based on the weight of the oil in the tanks. We want a "Happy Banana" with the keel midships no more than a foot deeper in the water than the keel at the bow and stern. When empty, the keel is a "sad banana' with the bow and stern about 6 inches lower in the water than the midships. What we don't want is a VERY happy or sad banana, because then you break the keel. 

 Everything's OK. 

   Well, everything's ok FOR ME. 

     I passed Halfway Day yesterday, so I'm on the downward slope of this tour already. Week 1 purely sucked with all the fill-in crew who were... how to put this diplomatically? Far too unskilled and unknowledgeable to be doing the job they are paid for, which consists of breath-having, heartbeat-having and being my backstop.  Week 2?   Like when you hit yourself with a hammer over and over, the best thing is the feeling when you stop. Week 2 was a pleasure because it was OK.  Big E is not my backstop. He's my equal. We're both capable of doing the same job, which means we have twice the minimum skillset on board. Good reset on my outlook. 

    And here we are. I have a spot lined up in Philadelphia/Baltimore when I get off here, so rather than going home I am going to get back to hitting myself with the hammer for profit before coming back to the HQ for another tour. 

    The house in Brazil is sucking up money like a $2 whore on dollar day. So it goes. 

        But seriously, this week around many of the blogs everyone's neck deep in the shit, and I'm not. I'm just fine.  Seriously.  

 Borepatch had some nasty skin cancer removed. 

BCE  continues with The Only Way Out Is Through. 

CedarQ had a mini-stroke. 

Peter at Bayou Renaissance Man, who is in the running for The World's Nicest Guy, had THREE kidney surgeries and has to frigging wait to heal before they give him back the on/off switch to his bladder. 

           And me? I'm OK.  A little bummed that I'm working 10 weeks straight away from home and then going home for just 2 weeks, but I mean, I ASKED to stay. Gotta get a mirror if I want to yell at the guy responsible. 

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         When I pull a stunt like I am doing now, overstaying my time at work, Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife will at times try to change my mind, or barring that, punish me in a mild way and remind me of my stupid decisions without creating a conflict over it. 

    After a serious talk last night where we talked about construction on the house in Brazil, the cost being borne (she's working 70-80 hours a week herself), and my need to pull a 10-weeker to throw some extra cash on the burn pile, she agreed that I made the right call but she still didn't like it. 

 Anyhow she sent me a picture this morning when she got up, one of those See What You're Missing Dummy pictures.

I'm gonna catch hell for posting her fresh out of bed without makeup. The cleavage thing, she doesn't care. She's a Brazilian indio;  getting clothes on them is like trying to baptize a cat.

            Ugh. gonna be a long 10 weeks. 

 The stars came in alignment and we've had 2 days' run ashore in Brooklyn around the Brooklyn Heights/Dumbo neighborhood. 

 The last two days I have gone ashore at 0630, to walk the Brooklyn piers, which they call Brooklyn Bridge Park, and then uphill through Dumbo, back to the Heights, and then downhill again to the Brooklyn piers and our lay berth. 5 miles. It's warming up here in the northeast, so I have been leaving early but not too early to get drinks at a couple of the stores along the way in the 2nd half of my walk. 

        When I was a kid, it was not unusual for us to walk a mile and a half to get a bottle of soda. As a teen we'd do a 5 mile circuit of my section of town, which passed by several convenience stores in the landward part before getting to the waterfront where there are no commercial businesses. 

 So it goes. Old habits I guess. These days I'm buying seltzer water on my walks to keep the blood pressure between the goalposts. I still take in way too much caffeine but I have limits. 

      Yesterday's walk was actually very pleasant. There were not many people out and I had moments to myself while I was around Brooklyn Bridge park. Just me and  some joggers going past. Mostly people younger than me, so likely these were upwardly mobile professionals trying to keep fit.

      I look down on the locals, for their choice to live in poverty conditions once they step outside their massively overpriced apartments. There's a shit ton of money in the area, but it's a massive dump on the streets.  The park, which is 95% concrete and steel with some pretty nice tree stands here and there that give you a momentary illusion of privacy... well, that's all they have.  I go a half mile west of my house, I have the Everglades, and the next paved road is 40-50 miles away.   Granted, immediately to my south and east is one of the most densely populated regions of the US, but leave me my illusions. 

   But yeah, after walking under the Brooklyn bridge I cross into Dumbo, which is White Brooklyn, and it still looks like a steaming turd, but there is slightly less dogshit and homeless to step over, which is pleasant. There's also the on and offramps around both the Brooklyn and Midtown bridges, so it's back to full cityscape and honking cars, but I can get a drink from one of the stores, and the stores are stores, not bodegas reselling obviously stolen merchandise. It's also a vaguely uphill part of the walk, and drops me at Brooklyn Heights or maybe downtown Brooklyn, I dunno. By then I'm back in the hellscape and I just march through and back towards the familiar neighborhood uphill from the lay berths. 

       The Last Store was a non-bodega bodega, a little latin-owned store with a deli-counter that is the last (or first) place to get a drink or hot food before you hit Brooklyn Bridge park and out lay berth. I liked the store- It was obviously family owned, and always spotless with wide aisles and open space, and smelled good, like familiar food smells, kinda homey. Place you could get a sandwich and bring it back to the HQ and not spend the next 3 hours with painful spicy diarrhea.    

        Recently, as arab-owned smoke shops move in, literally 3 to a block, and middle easterners buy out all the stores that are starting to struggle as the neighborhood starts to go to shit (I defy anyone to identify a smoke shop that does not destroy local property values), I came to value The Last Store more. In general I don't like bodegas- they're dirty, claustrophobic, and generally promote petty theft, as many or maybe most of them receive stolen goods taken by douchebag smurfs who steal from other stores on a professional basis. The Last Store wasn't like that. 

    I say 'wasn't' because I walked in there yesterday, there's middle eastern music playing, the deli menu overhead was painted over, and it smelled unclean. The 3 aisles had been increased to 5, with not enough room for me to walk without hitting shit with my shoulders. I'm fairly broadshouldered, but not exceptionally so... and of course, theress the disorganized, dusty stained packages of OTC meds, boner pills, weird foreign potato chips and all the other shit that I've come to identify as a likely mix of stolen and low class bullshit. 

   Still, with the low density of people, yesterday was a good day. Did me well I think, and I got back on board mildly sweaty but relaxed.      Today's walk on the same paths and roads had a LOT more people, which was a bummer, but  still more satisfying than they've been in a long while.  I think that after so many years of associating a daily walk with the same racetrack patters on a 300x50 foot deck perimeter, I have come to resent it. With opportunities to go ashore being so much less than they used to, the quality of life at my work has really gone to shit... and so days like yesterday and today, having an unusual and pleasant component, take on new meaning, perhaps more positive than they'd be otherwise to a guy who normally views interacting with locals here as punishment.