Good vs Bad experiences onboard.

So this is a post on my good and bad experiences mostly from my last contract onboard, when i was the only cadet. have fun lol

Good Experiences

This was an extremely good experience for me as this only happens once every couple years or so. By luck(hehe), my vessel Armada Tuah 21, or AT21 for short was chose among a few other vessels to undertake the operation of replacing the Shell LCOT mooring stretchers that are used to secure the tankers who come to load/discharge. I was extremely happy that i got to be involved in this operation to the point i woke up early, and slept late so i wouldn't miss it. It was quite a long and taxing process involving quite a lot of coordination but was all worth it for experience' sake.

Another good experience i had was an anchor handling operation with the accommodation workboat  MV Dayang Opal @ E-11 Oilfield. This was a personal thing for me as my dad was once involved in a helicopter crash a mere couple miles from E-11's main platform as he was closing in to land. It was cool for me to have been there to see the place where he crashed, let alone work there for a while. Besides that, as you can see in the background, we had to manually coil a tonne of steel cables. It wasn't fun, but it was a good experience either ways.

As i mentioned earlier regarding Labuan crude oil terminal in the first pic, experiencing and watching it was great. Having done some maneuvering that day under the supervision of my Captain and C/O was awesome too! And it wasn't some steaming around. Which was nice for a change.

Bad Experiences

So there was this one officer onboard one of my ships, both of which will not be named. So this guy I tell u ah. I'm not quite sure why but it was like we were destined to hate each other. Its not like either of us did anything to deserve each other's hate but it just led that way somehow. It was alright at first, being a cadet and all there's not much room to voice out opinions, much less about higher ranking officers. One day, i woke up on a normal day as i usually do, preparing to go up for duty. 15 mins early, as always. Little did i know, this unnamed officer who's been having issues with me decided to tell the capt some stories about me (made up, obviously), and i spent the next hour getting a free roasting from my capt on things i apparently did. That was the single most degrading day of my 365 days onboard. But life goes on. And we maintain a professional friendship til today.

Second bad experience. So there was a day in Labuan Port, alongside ASB jetty as we always do. Going alongside usually brings us uninvited guests(from office), provisions, cargos and stuff we ordered for the stores. A month prior to this we had mistakenly received the wrong supplies and the bosun was ordered to store it, as it was his job to be in charge of it. Coming back to the story, supplier came a month later to replace the mistaken supplies. Me on duty, was instructed by the 2/O to obtain the mistaken supplies to be returned to the supplier. Naturally, i went to the bosun who was not surprisingly asleep during duty in his room (dude was quite useless, he got kicked out the company a couple weeks later, in the next bad experience). As soon i had opened the door and asked him where the supplies were, he shouted and said he didnt know. He told me to ask the C/O who was asleep, off duty, at the time. So half-heartedly, i went to wake the C/O to ask him where the suppplies were. Boom. Gets a pissy explanation about how the C/O gave to bosun and an AB at the time. Great! More people to wake. So i proceed to wake the off duty AB to ask him where they were. Sure enough, kene bang lagi. Furious from getting screwed for no reason, i went back to the bosun's room. Soon as i opened the door he got up hastily throwing his pillows and stuff around, shouting at me as he left the room, asking me to look for it myself. I entered his now empty room, and opened 1 drawer that usually has supplies in it. IT WAS THERE IN HIS ROOM THE WHOLE TIME OAIEDOQHENOQIWN(refer to pic above for my reaction). Went on to change the supplies to the right ones with the suppliers while the bosun sat next to the guy. As i left the messroom where the supplier was waiting, i heard the bosun complain about me to the supplier for being a bad cadet (waking him up). I blew up and gave him a warning infront of the supplier. Supplier gave me a thumbs up infront of the bosun and laughed at him. Needless to say, it was a stressful morning but im glad it ended somewhat bittersweet.

Lastly, one of my worst experiences was when i almost died onboard because of the very same bosun above. Due to my bosun's lack of skill during an anchor handling operation, his instructions and lack of coordination skills caused the 4" diameter thick steel work cable holding a giant buoy to get stuck on one of our deck equipment, causing the wire to part along with the solid cement eye at the end of it flying back towards the 2/E and myself. The cement eye flew back faster than a blink of an eye and the next thing i realised it was on the floor a couple feet away from me. I looked up at the wall and notice a giant dent in it. Worst of all, the bosun couldn't be bothered to care. After this, that bosun was blacklisted from the company. That was scary.