The smaller they are, the harder we fall

Kaya (my daughter) turned one year recently & it has certainly been an awesome journey. I'd sure like to wax lyrical about how much she has learnt and what all great things she does, apart from saluting me at regular intervals, but she has her own blog. This is my blog and here I am allowed to write about how much I have learnt over the last year.

I think as a parent the biggest thing I have learnt over the last year has been to appreciate the small things. The ability to support your own neck. The ecstatic jumping with joy on someones ability to poop. The satisfaction on feeling a burp. The pride on seeing somebody urinate in the potty seat. The awe at the complexity of the human body to actually stand in place, bend down and pick up a round object.

I like to think that I am still learning. I am learning that it is a privilege when someone rests her head on your shoulder. and I am learning that it is harder then I expected to watch your kids fall. The day my kid learnt to roll over, it seems to have been a series of suicidal rushes as a carry over of some Jihad from her last life. As she is now learning to walk, things have only gotten worse. The last time, she dived off her Pram in great style to land face first in grass.

The problem that I am facing is that the realization is dawning that this is not going to get easier. Today itself she seems to be more keen on running, rather then understand how walking works. After the pram incident she has hopefully understood that flying would take longer to master.

The only solution to this seems to be to restrict her movements to an area two by two feet covered below by an mattress, above by limitless air and surrounded on all sides by parents. And every time I do this, I only feel that I am holding her back from achieving her true potential. She would probably be already running laps around the house If it hadn't been for the dammed mattress.

I realize that the actual problem might be metaphorical. Maybe I am actually getting myself to come to grips with the fact that kids will grow up and that they will take actions that will cause pain, hurt and other associated emotions in varying percentages. And over time, my words will progress from orders to instructions to advice to suggestions to guidelines to garbage. And not necessarily in that order.

There are of course ways in which new parents can get over their fear of their children hurting. Much like microwaving eggs, this would involve dropping kids from progressively greater heights and leaving them in progressively hazardous situations. Once we have a detailed database, we can then carry out a detailed risk analysis and set our risk limits in which to expose the little chaps. The only downside with this approach that I see, is that due to the changing physical nature of kids, we will have to undertake the study every alternate year. An alternate to this would be to set a height limit. i.e you could say that once your kid was as tall as your shoulder, you would let them do whatever the hell they wanted. reaching your ear would mean free prophylactics on the dinner table. There are further options, and as I weigh the merits of each of them versus the two by two mattress approach, I fear and fret.

That is another thing I am learning. I am learning to be afraid.

Oil spill of the Southwest pass.

The recent explosion of the oil rig off Louisiana has resulted in oil leaking from underwater pipelines. This picture of the oil slick right next to the Southwest pass entrance does bring the situation to focus. I have benn trading in this area for the last few years so it fells like my own backyard.

This taken with the Eagle Otome oil spill in the sabine river earlier this year sure seem to indicate that the US gulf isn't having a good year till now. And the hurricane season is yet to start!

Conversations at a French airport

A : so this sign indicates that these seats are reserved for the
handicapped, blind and the deaf. Who are the fourth set?

B : maybe it's you know the speech impaired people

A : oh ! I thought it was meant to be a couple of gay guys.

B : why would they reserve seats for gay guys?

A : I don't know. Maybe because they are french. Plus why do dumb
peole need seats? Why can't they fucking stand quitely in a corner
Like the rest of us?

Why does bad food happen to fat people?

The problem with fat people like me is that we have tasted good food.
And after tasting good food we have liked it. And after liking it, we
have eaten more of it. Make no mistake, we have become fat by working
hard at eating good food.

Which is why it was a bit tragic for me when all my lifes dedication
and efforts were disregarded by aeromexico when they put this thing in
front of me on the Mexico city - Paris connection.

Now the previous post was about Mexican food and heaven knows I have
put enough posts praising mexiccan food, but what I fail to understand
is why a bunch of mexicans would try to feed me French food in a
location from which I could not concievably escape.

Now I do not hate French food. Fat people with food are like mother
Teresa with lepers. We love all food. But like her we understand that
there is simply not enough time to take care of all the food in the
world and we have to decide which food group needs us more.

People have gotten fat on frech food, but he fact is that whenever I
have tried the same, I have found it so exhaustively pretentious that
it burns off all the bloody fat. French dishes are named something
like "mon de rue el carap" which probably translates into something
like "crappy food from the roadside". Something which have been
sucessesfully feeding white tourists for the last fifty years at a
fraction of the cost.

I had thankfully eaten a hearty Mexican meal of something that sounded
distinctly more exotic ( diabla anyone?) before boarding, so I just
prodded around at it to check if it would retaliate and cut a cross
section of it. As you can see in the picture, it didn't make things
any better.

Next time if these guys do make me fly with these guys again, I hope
they will be considerate enough to provide parachutes as well as the
sissy life jackets.

Shrimp diabla

Last mentioned in vincents post, it is the most amazing shrimp dish
ever. Recommended with a chilled beer.

Life is good. :)

DIE LOBSTER DIE!!

There definitely seems to be something in the Pagan religious practice of
sacrifices. The sacrifice of my reproductive organs, as mention in the last
post, did certainly seem to please Neptune, and we got some splendid weather
for the next couple of days. And as the sea seemed to be in a particularly
benevolent mood, all sorts of fauna and Aquana were being showered on us. I
saw my first Turtle at sea, as it lazily gobbled at a bunch of sea weeds.
The first night at anchor we set ourselves up on the poop deck with fishing
tackles and beers. I ofcourse maintained my record of never catching
anything, but the guys got a fair amount of Red snappers and these white
fishes, the nomenclature of which we argued over the beers. A few years back
and we would have lit up a barbeque and tossed them right there on the
grill. But these days people are actually expected to follow these pesky
safety regulations. Damn them all!

I have to admit that safety regulations do help. They tune the mind to some
Zen like state, where you are able to sense danger. For example, when I
looked out of the porthole on the next glorious morning, I immediately
sensed danger as I saw the bosun running back along the deck with what was
evidently an alien object eating his arm right up to his shoulders.

Like all prudent masters, except Nelson and James Cook- who wound up dead at
sea, I immediately swung into action and prayed to god. Then I sat down at
the desk and looked at the phone for the next five minutes. At the end of
that time, as the phone had not rung, it was evident that the alien
infestation had spread among the whole crew, which in an zombie inspired
orgy of blood and trailing entrails, had hacked each other to bits. I felt
deep sympathy for my young valiant mess man as he bravely tried to warn me
on phone as the zombie oiler nibbled on his feet. Rookie mistake. Aliens
always use phone lines to spread and as he would have held the phone to his
ears, the small ant aliens would go into his ears and all that would have
remained of Eddie would have been an agonizingly silent cry of blinding pain
as his brain imploded. I sincerely grieved for Eddie. Or it was equally
possible that nothing of great importance had occurred. Either way, it
didn't look like I would be required to do anything, so I decided that it
was safe to venture out of my cabin.

As it turned out, the light and its refraction through my dual layered
porthole had played tricks on my mind. It was actually a small bosun who had
caught a big Lobster. And as big lobsters go, this was huge. Minus its
antennae, which were longer then it, this chap was about half a meter in
length. Lobsters apparently don't die when you take them out of the water.
But it certainly looks out of sort when placed on a steel platter surrounded
by the ships crew who were excitedly pointing out which part they would eat.
As I looked at its majestic sweep lying on the galley table, Eddie happily
showed me where he would cut along the back to put in the masala and let me
stew. I have honestly not seen such a big lobster in my life. There
definitely can't be too many of this size out there in the world. It seemed
crazy that a bunch of sailors eat this chap in the middle of the sea. The
guy deserved to be in some aquarium looking out at the passing gaggle of
school kids with its unblinking eyes. If this was a couple of hundred years
back, this chap would probably land up on the table of the local ruler to
get his favours. As I looked up, I saw the faces of the Excited crew staring
back at me.

With a deep sigh, mustering up all of my Captains demeanour, I pointed to
the sea creature and declared,

"I want to eat this part."

Sea, sofa, so good

The last few days have been hectic. The fog from the last post did give us a
night off at Houston, but the night blew in a nasty cold wind from the north
that killed the fog and made me hate the cold again with a new intensity.

Another problem with cold fronts, ( apart from the aforementioned basic
problem that they are bloody cold), is that they bring bad weather with
them. The above picture of the houston channel, was the last day of good
weather that we had for the past week and by the time we had dropped anchor
in the Mexican oil fields two days out of Houston, the northerly swell has
started to roll in. It ended up dragging our anchor and forcing us out into
the Gulf of Campeche to fight it out with the sea. I don't think you ever
win with the sea, and we came back battered a couple of days later when she
calmed down a bit.

The problem with the hands on bigger ships like ours, is that we really
are a bit spoilt. So when the sea does get rough enough to make us
uncomfortable, we get really uncomfortable. I had thought that my cabin
furniture was firmly bolted to the deck, but a bout of particularly bad
rolling woke me up to a crash in my day-room in the middle of the night. As
I rushed in there in my boxers, my sofa, which is usually a rather inert
object, hurtled itself from the other end of the room right into my nuts. I
think its for the best that I'm already a dad.

Next morning did see the sea in a better if still disgruntled mood, a
dazed bunch of crew and a rather sheepish sofa.

Boxed in at houston

Woke up today morning with a thick fog blanketing the Houston ship channel.
We will be done with the cargo in a few hours & if this doesn't lift, we
should have a few hours to ourselves. Its sunday out here and it really
looks like a sunday sent by god to eat a few hot pakorahs and samosas with a
cup of steaming tea.

My latest joke

What did Mao say when Dalai Lama shouted "Free Tibet!" ?

"OK I'll take it."

Good riddance to bad wires

Anyone sailing on oil tankers has grappled with fire wires. Fire wires, also referred to as (ETOPS- emergency tow-off pennants system) must have seemed to be a swell thing to the guy who came up with the idea. The concept is that if there is a fire onboard an oil tanker or the terminal when a tanker is tied alongside, the oil tanker is to keep wires ready hanging overside on the sea side. Shore tugs will simply tie up to these wires and pull the ship off the jetty to safety. Thus in an emergency, there would be no confusion such as tying up the tugs and all that.

Well apparently it worked out well only in theory. Firewires (38mm in dia and about 120 m in length) are the crappiest piece of gear that is found on modern oil tankers. And we have our share of crappy gears. Everything about the fire wire from stowing, to deploying to adjusting it is a pain. All we ever got out of the fire wire was trips, bruises and a filthy mouth.

Apparently, word does get around. In 2007, OCIMF asked LR to carry out a risk assessment for fire wires in the industry and the results surprised even me. Apparently, fire wires have been deployed on tankers since 1967. And in that time they have not been used even once. Not once. On the other hand, fire wires have caused about seventeen hundred minor or major injuries in that period.

Thanks to this study by LR, OCIMF has finally stopped recommending the deployment of fire wires. Also they have amended the SIRE VIQ accordingly. This is great news. 1967 was a long time back so by the time the terminals and loading masters decide that its allright not to rig the wire, it might be a fair amount of time. But still, it is a beginning and hopefully soon we'll have one less thing to swear about at sea.

If you are interested, you can read the Risk assessment by Lloyds out here. Its an interesting read.

I'm sorry Mama

For the last few days, the people of Texas were focused on the case of a teenager who shot a police man in the stomach when the cop tried to break up the burglary. Eventually after a chase when the kid was caught, he had three words to say to the TV cameras, "I'm sorry mama."

Eminem said in his song with the same title,

"I'm sorry mama

I never meant to hurt you
I never meant make you cry
But tonight, I'm cleaning out my closet."

It really is a privilege to sail on ships and de-facto be parts of the lives of people in different corners of the world. But the more you look at the differences, the more you are reminded of the universality of emotions and the crushing weight of a mothers sorrow. And how we all need to apologise to it.

Vincent the patchy-white-skinned Pimp

Vincent is a pimp. He really is. Its not like the time I got drunk and
called Mr Verma, my social studies teacher a pimp. Vincent really is a pimp
and gets distressed at the thought that people might mistake him for someone
facilitating sex out of the goodness of his heart. I met Vincent in a
crowded bar in Mexico. Crowded bars are a great place to meet men. Some of
them are pimps. A few of our crew were having drinks there and someone
pointed me out as the captain. I'm not sure what Motion picture or TV series
they show in Pimp school, but Vincent has a very high regard for captains.
Vincent has in his head a vague plan involving a flotilla of ships filled
with Mexican prostitutes sailing to the farthest corners of the worlds
engaging in debauched acts in international waters. I think he has that in
his mind because he told it to me over his second drink. Its hard to
understand what Vincent is really thinking because you can barely see him.
He unfortunately suffers from that disease in which your skin gets those
white patches that then spread all over your body till you become all white
and stuff. That thing. It is unfortunate because Vincent tries to cover it
all up with wearing full sleeves in a sweltering heat and by hiding his face
behind all sorts of hand gestures. Infact he is so uncomfortable that at
those rare moments that he is shaking someones hand and flicking the ash
from
his cigarette at the same time, everyone respectfully looks at their drinks
till one of his hands is in place.

Vincent explains that he is a freelance pimp. That means that he simply
makes a profit from references, and doesn't need to maintain an exclusive
clientele, or girls or hit around any women. He says that is a very
convenient. Principally because it is very difficult to hit around Mexican
women.

Every company is required to have core policies that guide them in
everything that they do. I have diligently looked through all the policies
onboard and have not come across any policy that requires me to tell pimps
that I cannot let my ship be used as launchpad for boatloads of sex crazed
low cost prostitutes in nations with favourable forex conversion rates. I
have thus maintained silence on this issue. In all honesty, if Vincent ever
does give me a written request, I promise to forward it to the HQ. But in
the meanwhile, Vincent is a friend.

Vincent meets you at the boat jetty and takes you shopping. He haggles with
the cab drivers and the shopkeepers and takes you to quaint eating sea side
joints where he then translates the menu and orders the most awesome sea
food such as shrimps Diabla and the local cocktails such as the "Torito" .
All while describing in most vivid details how he could get you in bed with
women whose current loss of virginity might be actually doubtful. I am not
sure if you have ever shopped or had dinner with a similar topic being
spoken, but it sure beats watching seagulls fight over a fish thrashing
around in its dying throes. Vincent also has stories to match any
situation. You might get into a taxi with him and he would resume his
conversation with, "One time, I was in the taxi with another captain and
three of my friends, ..." and other such stories, too outrageous to be
anything but true. Taxi rides in Mexico are disappointingly short.

If you do ever feel indebted to him for these services and hesitatingly ask,
"Vincent, would you mind of I gave you some money."
Hiding his face behind a set of complicated hand gestures Vincent replies,
"If it makes you happy."

When things make people happy, Vincent becomes very happy.

Post pirates movie marathon

The heartlands of India were rather untouched by the salt of the sea until
the "Pirates of the Caribbean" came to be released. I ofcourse raise no
claims regarding the accuracy, or the lack thereof, of
this classic feature presentation, but looking at Capt. Jack Sparrow, it is
possible to reach certain assumptions regarding seafarers which may be
erroneous.

I am given to understand that these days one of the first question a father
asks of his prospective
seafarer son-in-law, is if he has been to the pirate port of Tortuga. My own
father-in-law ofcourse realised that at this point of time, it was probably
better that he did not know of the fact but being a doctor, couldn't resist
asking me one rather unremarkable evening,

"So how frequently do you guys take a bath on ships?"

AIS - Internet interfacing - dangers further explored

A couple of posts back, I tried to give examples regarding the
indiscriminate proliferation of internet AIS feeds, as seen from a
landlubbers perspective. Now I'm hoping to wade into the practical dangers
of this as faced by seamen.

Honestly, I have seen very less resistance from people regarding this trend,
but whenever something along this line does get raised, there are four basic
responses that crop up.
1. The info is already out there. The logic is that the feeds are already
out there if we like it or not. So might as well use them for whatever
benefit that we can get out of them. This is like justifying buying fur
because its already there in the store. Let me explain. The people who have
set up the AIS antennae on the shore are in it for the money. They are not
doing it because they want to see their dad sail into the harbour. John from
gCaptain explained the economics of the iphone Apps. His iPhone app for the
AIS (gTrax) sells for about five dollars on iTunes. Plus for every port that
you require a feed to, you need to pay ten dollars every month. Out of all
the revenue generated, about 50 percent goes to the people providing the
feed. Do the maths.

2. The threat is too improbable for any actual danger to ships. In forum
discussions I gave an example of sailing into an US port on a ship named
"Allah Laden" and how that might be targeted by college students with
iphones. Laughable right? Sitting in a US city, it certainly seems so. But
try sailing into the middle east with a ship named " Jesus H Christ" and are
you still that comfortable? You see, this is not something local to US
Coast. This is happening all over the world and personally as a guy who
might be sailing anywhere, it worries me. And the Americans should worry
too. The ISPS regulation was pushed through the IMO by the Americans mainly
as an response to 9/11. So the whole point of a regulation, in which you put
equipment on ships for better monitoring, is lost when you make it available
to the very people you want to keep out. Small boats and yachts are common
sights in US ports. Probably most of contributors of gCaptain have a couple
of boats themselves. If a bunch of Somalians can climb fast moving ships in
the middle of the sea while fighting resistance, there is not much stopping
an Al Quida cell from boarding slow moving LNG tankers in the miles of
inland US waters. Americans should worry. 9/11 was a local incident.

3. Just switch off the AIS. Sounds very simple. Infact, readers from a
non-sea background are probably going to ask at this point, "So if you
switch off the AIS, the transmission stops? Then what was all this bitching
about?"
Well its not so simple. Making the master responsible for switching off the
AIS is a very convenient ploy. He is anyway the guy who gets screwed
whenever there's a cock up, so why can't he be the fall guy for this as
well? The AIS is not to be switched off unless the master has good reasons
for switching it off. Who decides these good reasons? Sailing in the
Somalian coast is a very clear example. Even my company orders state that I
should switch off the AIS. But what about Sailing off the Benin, Nigerian
and the west African coast? Statistics prove that there are more piracy
incidents on West coast Africa then off Somalia. They are just low key. Can
I switch it off there? Suppose I'm an Indian Ship coasting Pakistani
waters, or an American ship coasting Iranian waters, then what? If some
incident does happen, the first thing that is going to be said is that the
Captain should have known better. So is the captain now supposed to read the
news daily and make threat assessments, that the whole Obama administration
routinely misses?
.
Take another case. I read the news. Diligently. And I arrive off Houston in
my assumed ship "Allah Laden" a day after the Fort Hood incident. A Muslim
has killed more than a dozen chaps and Obama issues a warning fearing for
reprisal attacks on Muslim targets. Hearing this, I immediately switch off
my AIS. Houston pilots have an intricate AIS system and our good friend
oneeighteen, boards and refuses to take in the ship unless I switch it back
on. What then?

I have been accused of making silly connections, but to me, passing the
onus, on switching off the AIS on the master, seems like an old western
movie, in which the local goons insist that they will shoot in the main
street and people who don't want to get shot can simply sit in their houses.

4. Lets just do it in America. The US is an awesome country. idea's born
here are going to take flight and go everywhere. AIS iphone apps for china
are not far and are probably already out there. There is nothing stopping it
from replicating anywhere. God knows that the Somalian pirates have enough
money to start off a system that they can use within their own network if
they put their mind to it. Give me a couple of million dollars and I will
set up an awesome system that will stream live info to only my core group.

And AIS is not the end. LRIT is just being started. An Antennae off Scotland
could pick up a ship off Somalia and feed it live on the internet. Is
something in place to stop that?

The tragedy of this whole thing is that the people feeding this whole
movement are the shipping fraternity. Joe, who goes online from his mom's
basement when not in college is not the one paying these AIS stations for
live feeds. Its the yatchmen, pilots, tugsters, shipping companies and
seagoing folks who are paying this and jeopardising themselves and their
fellow mates. People are taking any mention of stopping this as invasion of
their personal rights. Guys, this is a new technology and just because there
are no laws against it doesn't make it right. Just because god gave you a
big dick doesn't mean you have to fuck yourself in the arse with it. Another
silly connection, but there it is.

PS: As I am posting this by email, I couldn't put any links to the above. Am
writing this as a reminder to myself & to you if you need me in the future
to give you the links :
01. gTrax's business model
02. IMB's Piracy statistics.
03. Fort Hood incident
04. LRIT details

Safety First !

Photo courtsey : gCaptain Forum

We might be scurvy-ridden-pirate-scum, but we also have ISM Checklists.