12-08-2004, 05:51 AM
Wow people really seem to set goals for themselves.
Get ready for a life story.Maybe someone will find these rambling interesting.
Im not sure what ill do in the future.Iv done half a course at marine school training to be a 2nd mate oficer.Which is the ships navigator lots of chartwork and crap (on cruise liners and container ships etc) did all the theory i possably could, (wasting copious amounts of money on fees living costs etc) before finding that for over 6 months that i couldnt find a job as a trainee on board ship which i needed 1 year of to complete my training. Then finally found a job but with a dodgy company (getting desperate and wonding about wasting life) Decided to quit that job after about a month of bad misstreatment.We(another student went as well) were getting paid $26 nz a day minus tax so even less, which wouldnt have been bad if we were getting trained because all food accomadation is paid for because you live on board.Unfortunatly we were working 7 days a week at least standard 8-5 hours but when working the ship (loading unloading)we could do anything up to 90+ hours in one week.and not one bit of our proper training.Just deck work.
A typical trip
24 hours work with 4x30 min breaks (loading)
4 hours sleep
2 hours checking things are allright
6 hours sleep
4 hours work by this stage its night so you sleep till next day
8am-5pm day
sleep through most of night arriving in port in early morning
24 hours (unloading)
4 hours sleep
16 hours cleanup after unloading
What makes this even worse is we were carting livestock.Wild bulls and sheep.So when i say we were cleaning for 16 hours that means shovels and hosing of crap.Which when you take into account tax somedays was for less than a dollar an hour.
One trip our water tank got contaminated and we all got crook.We had 2 days with 10 workers and only 5 1.5 litre bottles of sprite to sustain us.Plus due to initial sickness our bodies wernt exactly holding liquids well.What really pissed us off is the officers and captain had plenty of bottled water locked away that they were hoarding.
So after we quit we couldnt get another job as our names were mud with the director of the maritime school who as it turns out is really good friend with the manager of the ship.And as far as i can tell is telling everyone to keep clear of us.We got heaps of threats from ships manager that this would happen when we left.
So i got job working in my mothers cafe/restraunt a year and a half later im still there working as everything (cook, backup, dishes, waiter, general manager, depending on what they need that day)And i have no idea what i want to do with myself only that it wont be what im doing now.
As for traveling
I love the sea and am used to more the 40 foot gamefishing sort of scene.My father has been tempted to buy a launch maybe in the 70-90ft range and cruise round the world for a while, maybe 6 months delivering it back to new zealand and selling it(boats of this size are super cheap overseas compared to here so the trip would pay for itself plus a little profit) He needs some one to do one of the opposite watches to him that he can trust.So he asked me if id be interested should he decide to go through with it.
Oh yeah and people (especially non aus or kiwi) take things far to seriously and dont seem to realise when your taking the piss.Jugdish would have noticed this.although canadians are pretty laid back as well.
my #2 is for the world to chill be happy and watch lots of anime.
Get ready for a life story.Maybe someone will find these rambling interesting.
Im not sure what ill do in the future.Iv done half a course at marine school training to be a 2nd mate oficer.Which is the ships navigator lots of chartwork and crap (on cruise liners and container ships etc) did all the theory i possably could, (wasting copious amounts of money on fees living costs etc) before finding that for over 6 months that i couldnt find a job as a trainee on board ship which i needed 1 year of to complete my training. Then finally found a job but with a dodgy company (getting desperate and wonding about wasting life) Decided to quit that job after about a month of bad misstreatment.We(another student went as well) were getting paid $26 nz a day minus tax so even less, which wouldnt have been bad if we were getting trained because all food accomadation is paid for because you live on board.Unfortunatly we were working 7 days a week at least standard 8-5 hours but when working the ship (loading unloading)we could do anything up to 90+ hours in one week.and not one bit of our proper training.Just deck work.
A typical trip
24 hours work with 4x30 min breaks (loading)
4 hours sleep
2 hours checking things are allright
6 hours sleep
4 hours work by this stage its night so you sleep till next day
8am-5pm day
sleep through most of night arriving in port in early morning
24 hours (unloading)
4 hours sleep
16 hours cleanup after unloading
What makes this even worse is we were carting livestock.Wild bulls and sheep.So when i say we were cleaning for 16 hours that means shovels and hosing of crap.Which when you take into account tax somedays was for less than a dollar an hour.
One trip our water tank got contaminated and we all got crook.We had 2 days with 10 workers and only 5 1.5 litre bottles of sprite to sustain us.Plus due to initial sickness our bodies wernt exactly holding liquids well.What really pissed us off is the officers and captain had plenty of bottled water locked away that they were hoarding.
So after we quit we couldnt get another job as our names were mud with the director of the maritime school who as it turns out is really good friend with the manager of the ship.And as far as i can tell is telling everyone to keep clear of us.We got heaps of threats from ships manager that this would happen when we left.
So i got job working in my mothers cafe/restraunt a year and a half later im still there working as everything (cook, backup, dishes, waiter, general manager, depending on what they need that day)And i have no idea what i want to do with myself only that it wont be what im doing now.
As for traveling
I love the sea and am used to more the 40 foot gamefishing sort of scene.My father has been tempted to buy a launch maybe in the 70-90ft range and cruise round the world for a while, maybe 6 months delivering it back to new zealand and selling it(boats of this size are super cheap overseas compared to here so the trip would pay for itself plus a little profit) He needs some one to do one of the opposite watches to him that he can trust.So he asked me if id be interested should he decide to go through with it.
Oh yeah and people (especially non aus or kiwi) take things far to seriously and dont seem to realise when your taking the piss.Jugdish would have noticed this.although canadians are pretty laid back as well.
my #2 is for the world to chill be happy and watch lots of anime.