Sometimes crew members do something abroad, and they think there is no problem, and even everyone thinks it is a very normal thing, but because they don’t understand this country, they eventually cause trouble for themselves. This will be a huge blow to the crew. If there wasn't a captain on the boat, I think many of our crew members would have suffered a loss abroad, especially if the crew members encountered problems in Africa, which would be even more trouble.
In 2009, our ship received a notice from the company asking us to rush to Russia to load the goods after unloading the goods in Germany. This is a good thing for the crew, after all, the cargo we unloaded in Germany is coal mines, which means we have to clean the nine large warehouses on the ship before we reach Russia.
This is a hard work, but it is also a quick job to make money. Many times, laymen may not know that crew members still have a lot of extra money on the ship, but it depends on luck. If you have good luck, you can make a lot of money.
This time, we want to load grain this time, so we need to clean nine large warehouses in time. The owner of the ship promised to give the warehouse sweeping fee, and each person can get a subsidy of about 3,000 yuan. For the crew, it is still OK to subsidize a little living expenses on the ship. After all, some crew members can drink and smoke on the ship.
In order to rush to work, the crew members cleaned their clothes black every day, and no one could recognize who they were. This kind of work is not necessarily possible for laymen. It is acceptable to wash the cabin in summer. If it is winter, it will be very painful and wet. If it is not done well, you may catch a cold. It is a challenge for the crew. You have to continue doing this matter, and you have to do it even if you don’t. This is a regulation and cannot affect loading. The company is working with the crew from top to bottom. After all, after the ship arrives at the Russian terminal, the owner will come to inspect the cabin. If the verification fails, it will need to be cleaned again, which is time-consuming and labor-intensive, and it is very hard.
The ship I was in at that time, the crew on the ship were quite conscientious and responsible. Everyone worked very hard and everyone was very harmonious on weekdays, so this work was done very well. On the day the ship arrived at the dock, the work of cleaning the cargo hold had been completed and the work of drying the cargo hold was basically completed.
What we are waiting for is that after our ship is on the dock, the owner will come to the ship to inspect the cargo hold. Once qualified, you can start loading. Generally, loading in Russia is very fast, and the crew basically don’t have much time to go on the local area to visit, just simple shopping.
That time, we leaned smoothly at the St. Petersburg Pier in Russia as planned. Early in the morning, local officials came to the ship to handle the procedures, and the crew members also worked. This time, they planned to load 110,000 tons of grain, which took about 2 days to complete the goods.
With such a short loading time, crew members usually go to the local area just to buy something, go to the girl to relax, and it’s basically done. The crew members who don’t want to go down basically rest on the boat and surf the Internet.
So when the crew members arrive in the local country, they will open the Internet as soon as possible, contact their families, and contact their girlfriends, otherwise their girlfriends will run away with others.
In those years, it has been a pain for those young crew members. After many young crew members went to sea, because they were not married yet, many girls have escaped with others after they realized the nature of seafarer .
So many crew members cherish their time at the dock. As long as there is an internet connection, they start to contact their homes and chat more while the loading time.
was loaded continuously at around 2 a.m. on the third day. Another boring long route began, and the crew packed up their deck and began a boring life.
This time we will drive directly from the port of St. Petersburg to the African country of Ghana. It is expected that the maritime navigation time will be about 20 days, and it can be reached at basically economic speed.
The ship owner has a bad business, and the ship also floats at will on the sea. The less business there is, the longer we need to float on the sea. I don’t know whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing, after all, the crew members live on the boat.
In the eyes of ordinary crew members, the longer they float at sea, the more comfortable their lives are. For senior crew members, they can be less on duty at the bridge if they arrive early. Everyone has different ideas and hopes for different things.
This is not the captain who understands the crew's minds very much. In order to improve the crew's boring life every day, entertainment activities such as extra meals, barbecue, tug of war are held on the boat.
Usually, when the weather is good, friendly captains take care of the crew's mood and hold barbecue activities on the ocean to relax and enhance the crew's feelings.
This is a good thing. Compared with many captains, our captain is still very generous. He sends wine, cigarettes, eats and drinks, and is not so stingy.
The crew members can also eat some good food on the boat and improve their food. After all, the food on the boat is very poor. Although it is three dishes and one soup, the boring food makes it difficult for the crew members to swallow.
holds events and kills time, which is indeed a good thing. For me, I would rather ships arrive at the port early, so that I can have more time to do whatever I want, and I can go to the local country to play and shop in the local country.
is much better than being on the boat every day and being isolated from the world.
After about 19 days of sea voyage, our ship successfully arrived at the anchorage of Ghanatma Port. Because it arrived in advance, the captain chose to break down at the anchorage. During the breakdown of
, our crew members were still very happy. They all knew that there were many sea fish in this country and came to the deck to fish. Fishing is a great pleasure for the crew. They all enjoy fishing on the sea, especially in foreign waters. You don’t know what fish you will catch, and you don’t know what the fish in the local country is like. If you encounter a fish nest, it’s amazing. You can get the fish by just getting the hook. This taste is the most enjoyable time for the crew.
Generally, the ship does not work during the anchorage, so the crew can fish on the deck as much as possible.
It is because of this fishing that our crew members have caused a lot of things, which has caused a lot of trouble to themselves.
We caught fish in the anchorage for a day and caught about 120 kilograms, which was a very good harvest. However, such a small amount of fish did not allow the crew to catch enough, which led to the crew continuing to fish after leaning on the dock.
We successfully anchored at around 3pm the next day and leaned against Ghanatma Port. This port is quite special. At that time, our boat was leaning against the sea entrance and it was already past four o'clock in the afternoon. The crew members also returned to their rooms to take a shower and change clothes, waiting for the meal to start at half past five o'clock.
The night time is what the crew should pass. Some crew members still want to go down to the local country to play in the middle of the night, but for safety reasons, they were still banned by the captain.
Boring crew members, they don’t know who to chat with if they have the Internet. After all, Ghana is eight hours apart from our country, and their family is already going to bed very late.
This is the beginning of the problem and the main reason for the serious problem this time.
After dinner, many of the deck crew members went to bed early. After all, the sailors and drivers still need to go to night shifts, and only the crew members in the cabin can rest in the room normally.
On the evening, the sailor on duty was on duty at the duty post. He wanted to go to the toilet at about 10 o'clock and felt it was troublesome to go back to the room to go to the toilet, so he found a seat and lined up directly into the sea on the side of the boat.
Just as he was urinating, he saw a lot of fish appearing on the water and swam around the side of our boat. These fish deeply attracted the attention of the sailors on duty, but they wanted to fish but had to go to work and were not allowed to leave their jobs.
There was no fishing gear around him, so he had to ask his colleague for help.
The colleagues I can think of at this time are the crew members of the cabin, and they are the only ones who haven’t had a rest yet. So the sailor on duty thought of the three-pipe wheel that he usually had a good time with, so he called his room.
The three-tube wheel was also very happy to learn about this. She immediately went to get the fishing gear and asked the chef for some bait. She happily came to the side of the boat to find the sailor on duty to learn about the fishing school.
After learning the location of the fish, the three-tube wheel, as usual, skewed the bait, put down the fishing line and started fishing.
As soon as the hook was removed, two fish came up, and it was red snapper , which made the three-tube wheel very happy. They lowered three sets of fishing lines in a row, and the sailors on duty on the side occasionally came over to help lift the lines.
There are so many fish here. In a short while, the three-tube wheel caught more than a dozen fish. The two of them happily planned to secretly take them back to the kitchen to cook some fish soup to drink.
The idea is good, but I am too happy.
The more you fish, the more you enjoyed it, which attracted the attention of the security guards on duty at the dock. After seeing this situation, the security guards ignored them and asked them to continue fishing.
About half an hour passed, and the security guard on duty called three port personnel, and all three port personnel came to them in uniforms.
At first, the three-tube wheel disagreed and thought they were coming to see the fun. The sailor on duty greeted them and randomly caught a red snapper to show it to the port staff.
After the staff saw this, it was not easy.
They came to the boat, one of them took a photo with his mobile phone, the other one stopped the three-bar fishing rotation, and the two port staff said a lot of words.
is probably to ask one of the port officials to go back to the security booth to check the video to see if there is still any fish being sent back to the kitchen during the fishing period.
This matter is a big problem, and one wave has not yet subsided and another wave has started again.
Port staff checked the video and found that the sailor on duty had urinated into the sea during the shift. This incident caught their attention, and they took multiple photos, pulled the three-pipe wheel and the sailor on duty to find the captain.
At the beginning, the three-tube wheel ignored them, thinking that this was just fishing. I didn’t encounter this when I said that I hadn’t encountered this before.
The three-tube wheel made them angry directly. The three of them pulled the three-tube wheel to the dock, wanting to take them away. The sailor on duty immediately picked up the walkie-talkie and reported the situation with the first mate.
After learning about this, the first mate rushed to the scene and made a simple negotiation with them. Port staff believe that the crew had violated Ghana's national fishing regulations and was required to be fined and detained. It was the first time that the first lieutenant encountered this. He didn't believe them and asked them to come up with relevant laws and regulations before speaking.
But if you stand on someone's territory, they won't listen to the first mate and ask to see the captain directly. The first mate thought he could resist them, so he took them to find the captain with swearingly.
The staff took the photo to show the captain. After the captain learned about this, he explained their purpose to the first mate.
Crews who have been to Ghana's country should know that the port officials in this country are unscrupulous. As long as they catch any handle and they think you are doing something wrong, they have a reason to arrest you.
The purpose of arresting is to ask for money, and tell the other party very clearly that if you don’t have money, don’t want to leave. As for saying you want to eat in prison, it is completely a bluff, but you have to face it and you can only solve the problem with money.
Captain is the captain. He still has experience. When faced with this, he accepts fines and negotiates the price rationally.
However, this is a bit serious. On the one hand, the sailors on duty discharge sewage into the sea, and on the other hand, both of them caught a lot of fish.
Captain doesn't want to speak, he just wants to test how much they want.
What surprised us was that the captain asked them to offer a price, and one of the staff was merciless and said it was $3,000, on the grounds that we made two mistakes in their country, which were the result of multiple crimes and punishments. They explained that sewage discharged $1,000 and fishing $2,000.
Captain was not very happy after hearing this, thinking that they were blackmailing. At first, they were kind enough to give them an appropriate fine, but later they saw that they did not want to reduce the fine, so the captain called the local agent in charge of our ship affairs and asked him to talk to the locals.
About half an hour later, the agent came to the ship. After a preliminary understanding of the situation, he had a ten-minute exchange with them and negotiated whether there were really fishing regulations in the local country.
Several port staff are relatively stubborn, three to one, and the agent is talking about it.
agent knew it well. He knew that this happened not only to us, but also to us before, but this time we were more serious.
catch many fish and urinate into the sea.
agent saw that they were unwilling to lower the price, so he started to communicate with them in local language. We stood aside and couldn't understand what they communicated.
The four people called again and talked in a slight manner, but the final result of the conversation still made the captain feel dissatisfied.
agent told the captain that due to our multiple wrong behaviors, the port party gave us a concession once, and did not arrest and detain, and only fined US$2,000.
Captain must have disagreed. He asked the agent to come up with the corresponding laws and regulations to explain things, otherwise he would need to call the consulate.
agent sees that the captain is not a vegetarian, and he is stuck in the middle and can only continue to communicate with them. The captain asked other captains about this matter while they were communicating.
There is a captain who has also been here and has experienced this kind of thing, but he is not so responsible. At that time, he basically gave $500 and got it done.
It seems that so many captains in the circle have basically never been there, and the ones who have been there are only money to solve.
The captain considered this and did something wrong was the sailor on duty. He thought that it would not be a problem if he kept pestering him. In order not to affect the normal operation of the ship, leave the port normally. The captain and the agent had another in-depth conversation, allowing the agent and staff to evade the fine for fishing.
Even the agent shook his head, believing that although fishing was not stipulated by their country's laws and regulations, the sailors on duty were wrong in urination.
made a simple communication on this matter, but it was still fruitless. Several port staff immediately called the foreman and asked them to stop their work.
is a bit inappropriate. We originally had 18 days to unload goods here. In such a messy place, Africans are lazy in doing things, and the unloading speed is the same as snail .
If the delay continues, the company will definitely know that once you know this, the crew may have to go home. The captain is for the protection of the crew and the maintenance of his own reputation.
Captain directly asked the agent for a fine of $1,000, and it would be impossible to give it to him.
Captain has a tough temper, and everyone saw it. The agent negotiated with several staff members and finally agreed to a fine of $1,000, but an additional requirement was added, requiring each captain to send another cigarette.
There is a lot of smoke on the ship, which is a trivial matter, and the captain immediately agreed to their request.
The staff received the fine and did not leave immediately after receiving the cigarette. Instead, they asked the captain to take a piece of blank paper and wrote that the 1,000 US dollars and three cigarettes were given voluntarily by the captain. They were the remuneration fees paid by the staff and asked the captain not to talk to the local government about this matter, otherwise the consequences would be borne by the at your own risk.
This matter is explicitly blackmail. The captain of Ghana knows so much about it. Most of the officials in their country are of the same nature.
When we were by the dock that day, every port official from the port asked the captain to give cigarettes and also to eat on our ship.
We know that the local country is very poor, and the captain was helpless and could only follow the wishes of these officials and gave them some supplies on the ship, such as tea, beverages, juice, vegetables, cigarettes and other things on the ship. They helped us to handle the customs clearance procedures normally on the ship and allowed us to unload the goods normally.
If you really have less poverty in this country, you must not come. There is no good person in the local area, and the agent is actually the same. He thinks that Chinese people have money and try his best to find reasons to ask us for money and things.
No wonder this country is so poor. It is caused by the style of these officials, which makes the local people pitiful.
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