well, i actually made it a few days while at sea then after a good meal a crew mate said, lets go have a smoke, ""ONE AINT GONNA KILL YA’’’’ … SO I SMOKED FOR ANOTHER TEN YEARS. but really, there isn’t any single thing worse one can do for them selves … i too quite a few bad habits … some were damned bad but i guess for contemporary stuff cigs has to top the list … maybe followed by hard liquor? i guess if we make it to 95 or somethign we can start again?? (after that i won’t matter much??
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NIcotine is unique among addictions in that when quitters resume they tend to almost immediately achieve the same consumption levels they stopped at.
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I was a smoker for many year, (from age 15 to 52) and got to abt. 40-50 sticks/day in the end.
Then, sometime in 1995, I was going out to the South China Sea to take one of Dual Drilling’s J/U rig in to Singapore for layup.
To get there I had to fly down to Jakarta for an overnight stop, before taking an early morning charter flight to Matak, Anambas Islands and eventually a chopper out to the rig.
In Singapore I bought 2 Ctns. of Dunhills to make sure I wouldn’t run out of smokes on the way.
Before leaving Singapore I felt lousy, but the 1 hr. 20 min. flight to Jkt. (++) without a cigaret helped. Of course, as soon as I could I lite up and felt lousy again.
The next morning I felt fine. A few cigs before it was off to Halim for the flight to Matak and I felt lousy, but the 2 hrs. 30 min. up to Matak worked wonders.
Hanging about at Matak Airport while waiting for the chopper flight gave time for some more smokes, with the same predictable result.
After over an hour in the chopper without a cigaret I was OK again, but as.soon as I got into the Control Room on the rig I lite up a cigaret and felt lousy.
I asked myself; “why am I doing this??” and stubbed out the last cigaret in the ashtray, never to smoke again.
The trip into Singapore was hard, both for me and the rig crew. (They contributed with chewing gum and sweets though)
When we arrived in Singapore the Rig Superintendent came on board and was warned; “Capt. Boogie has quit smoking, so you better stay away from him”.
I had hung on to the 2 cartoons of cigarettes, just in case, but when I left the rig I gave them away, feeling confident that I had beaten the habit once and for all.
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Going through all the posts, and by the way THANK everyone for their posts. I read about the inconsistencies with vessel food. Which only reemphasizes, my point. The need for more training requirements for vessel galley staff. If a cook makes meals and finds they are consistently running out - adjust by making more. Most vessel have crew working or sleeping 24hrs per day, however galley staff work 8-12hrs per day. Just saying somebody is going to be eating somethings 24hrs per day. That is what “night lunch” is for. Both the Deck and Engine have responsibility and accountability. Where as the galley has responsibility but slack accountability ? In the year 2020 and the future, mariners should be able to go to work on any vessel with the expectation that their health won’t decline due to poor food quality.
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Sailing MSC in the mid 2000’s we nearly ran out of food. At least decent food. Were supposed to be returning from gulf deployment but got held up in the eastern Med due to some unrest in the area. Seemed like every day was sausage for breakfast, hot dogs for lunch, and scraps for dinner. The food we had in cold stores was strictly for unrep. Navy ships came and went as we stayed at sea for 50 days.
On another fine MSC ship we started finding maggots in the rice being served. After several complaints to the Captain and Chief Steward, the official reply from the Stew was a quote from the government food safety manual with the allowable maggots per pound of rice. He was within the limits. F that guy!
After moving to the oil patch I found out how food is supposed to be on a ship…varied, plentiful, frequent, and fresh. The worse the locale for morale, the better the food.
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One smoking area was outside and the other was a small lounge with a TV that exhausted to the atmosphere. It was a compartment that I inspected through the glass from the outside.
All you needed to do was sift the rice on some screen and the maggots drop out. Put the “clean” rice in a reefer box after that and you are good to go. Been there done that.
I learned on a Lykes Brothers ship to always check the saltine crackers for live extra protein before opening.
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If only he’d taken that little effort. Unfortunately we found them on our plate after being served. Cooking them doesn’t really enhance the flavor…
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On drilling rigs it used to be; “NO SMOKING OUTSIDE”
Then new HSE rule were applied and that changes to; “NO SMOKING INSIDE”
Generally the food in the oil patch is first class and the only time I had a bitch was not about the food but getting it prepared. We were 6 on 6 off with 2 AB’s, AB cook and AB greaser. The rig was an hour and a half off the beach and we were the only boat servicing the rig. They didn’t plan nothing, 5 trips to the beach in one 24 hour period and under the hook the rest of the time. After 2 days of sandwiches I kicked up and we got another AB so we got the cook back in the galley.
Deep sea we ran out of potatoes once. I told the cook if it happened again I would lock up the rice. The Filipino cook and crew took the warning to heart.
I’ll offer this to the conversation. Understand I don’t mind people smoking but I don’t want it in my immediate vicinity. I smoked as a kid but quit because of the other kids who wanted to smoke but not buy their own smokes.
Fast forward to my early 20’s and I was living about an hour west of Ft Bragg/Fayetteville, NC. Big Tobacco Country back then. I noticed that all the people who grew the stuff claimed that they didn’t smoke. So I asked one farmers son why ? He took me over to their barns where the big spray tractors with outriggers and side tanks were kept and then to the mixing station. At this station there were as many as 30 55 gallon barrels of chemical sprays (all with skull & cross bones on them) From these a chemical cocktail was mixed up to spray the tobacco. My friend explained that at no time was the tobacco washed to get this stuff off it. It was harvested and put in “Hot houses” where it was flash dried for a day and then trucked up to Winston Salem, NC where it went to R J Reynolds.
He went on to explain that if it should rain, no one was allowed to go into the tobacco fields for the following three days should any of the wet tobacco rub against their skin. (as it would make them very ill)
So if I asked if any of them had smoked he explained that Grandad did but they grew his tobacco the old way. I asked what was that way ? He explained they pulled the caterpillars off the leaves by hand and destroyed them. No chemicals ever sprayed on it.
The conclusion of our conversation was that every farmer used a different mix of chemicals to his liking. So you never know what you are getting. Once at RJ it all goes into hoppers once sorted for the various products…
And once RJ Reynolds got the tobacco they sprayed another 8 to 12 chemicals on it. (one the principle ingredient of gun powder so the tobacco burns whether you puff on the cigarette or not) The other chemicals keep the tobacco from gumming up the machinery that processes it so it can be made into cigarettes.
A number of years later I was working with a company that made packaging. We had a
chewing tobacco company we were making packaging for and I got to speak with an employee who explained to me that the company put this stuff into the tobacco that would make your mouth water. The idea was that if you spit it out you mouth would water and crave another chew of fresh tobacco.
So, this is why I don’t chew or smoke.
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You mean it’s not organic???
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LOL, yeah…it’s gotta be good for you or guverment wouldn’t let them sell it.
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On a U.S. flag ship anyway you gotta have coffee, bacon and eggs. Don’t want to ever run out. It not a bad idea for the captain to keep track of items like these.
The U.S. is a really good place to buy food, it’s good quality, the steward and crew are familiar and the prices are good.
First time I got low on coffee during a trip and ordered more overseas we got sent instant coffee which is what most ships use but U.S. crew don’t like. Getting the right stuff involved an email exchange of dozen emails, ended up taking a picture of the ground coffee container and sending that.
Burns up a lot of time and energy for something stupid. Don’t want to be taking photos of coffee cans in Singapore Straits. After that I figured out the consumption rate and kept an eye on the boxes myself, same for eggs. Some stewards do OK, some not.
Did you get hold of Community Coffee in Singapore?
is that the dust off the floor like they server in hawker centres?
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No, but I’m sure someone here will explain what Community Coffee is.
At the hawker centers in Singapore you get “Kopi’O” made using “the sock”. (You should know those terms)
PS> I prefer “Kopi’O Kosong” with my Kaya Toast and half-boiled eggs for breakfast at Ya Kun:
PS> I go back to the original Ya Kun Coffee Stall at La Pa Sat and Telok Ayer Godown, when the old men made the coffee and eggs, while the wife toasted the bread over charcoals.
.
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Port orders are typically for perishable such as fresh milk and fruit. An order is made up and submitted to the company, the company in turn puts the order out for bids. In practice it’s to suppliers that have been reliable in the past.
I then get the order back with prices, edit it maybe add a couple items etc and send it back. All this with email cc’d to the local agent and the supplier as well if they are a regular.
This is done about a week before arrival, we usually don’t know for sure what the chandler is going to bring until it show up on the pier.
RO/RO tends be be fast tempo, often only a few hours alongside.
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Switching coffee on the crew, not a good idea. First they are gong to yap because it’s not Maxwell House and then yap again when it runs out and it’s back to Maxwells.
If Community coffee was supplied in error best to empty it into the Maxwell house containers so the crew never notices.
Crew deserves good food but I hate having foodies on board.
We had a really good cook one trip then back to the standard. The crew won’t shut up about how good the food used to be for a week and a half after. Better to stick with the standard.
At one point at the other table the third mate complained that the pasta wasn’t al dente. In a loud voice I asked the chief “Al dete? What the fuck does that even mean?”
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