Crappy Weekend

So, when it comes to writing about the fun stuff Chris is all about it... Today she says to me 'why don't you tell everyone what a crappy weekend we had!' - GREAT. I would just love to recap our weekend of hell, actually not all bad, Chris suggested that the title be 'Friday from Hell' but I thought that an all inclusive weekend would be more accurate... so, here goes.

Friday morning started out pretty well, got up, had a shower, some nice coffee, no traffic.... then we arrived at work. Earlier in the week I had fired one of the crewmembers for refusing to listen to his boss, and he was due to go at noon time. Anyway, just after we arrived the first thing I did was to tell him that US Customs would be at the boat at 12:30 to check his baggage. I am assuming at this point that he believed me to be kidding when I fired him earlier in the week... he got a strange expression on his face (the kind where you aren't sure if someone is going to start crying, or stab you in the neck) he ended up running onboard the ship and jumping up and down and talking to the Oiler. The end resuld of thier 'confrence' was that they both came charging back to me shoulder to shoulder (I am thinking... great I am going to get stabbed in the neck!).... but that didn't happen, the Oiler quit. PERFECT. Just the wake up I was hoping for!

10 minutes later the Oiler came into the office and started begging to have his job back... not cool... his ticket was already purchased. It seems that he still wanted to quit, he just wanted to delay his quitting till Christmas. Yeah, like that was going to happen. Sionara.

About 15 minutes later the Chief Engineer came into the office and informed me that we have some oil in the coolant in the starboard main engine. That is REALLY bad.... and what I know about engines could write a two page book. He said that when the engine is idling the temp goes high and the oil pressure goes low..... end result is that we spent all weekend trying to figure out what the hell the problem is and haven't yet discovered the answer..... maybe it is just a bad temperature gauge. Frustrating and it is not adding to my comfort and ease of falling asleep.

Hummm... Oh, of course, about a half an hour later our tennants call and tell us that the basement is flooding and that it is coming out of the boiler. fun is, right. so, I am in Puerto Rico, the house is in Connecticut... it isn't like I have friggin yellow pages here. thank god for the internet.... I called every plumber that I could find, and the only one that could go to the house right away was - I am totally serious here - Shady Plumbers. Great, so our house is flooding and our fate is being controlled by Shady Plumbers. I was not happy. At all. Really. About two hours go by, and Shady Plumbing calls and say that I need a new boiler. yeah right, fix the pipes. Still 800 bucks. argh.

So, by now it is 12:30 and Customs is late to check the now the two geniuses bags..... and they are in danger of missing their flight home to their very pleased wives in the DR. We had to make a bunch of calls and Desiree had to scream a bit in spanish, but we finally got someone here. Really nice guy acutally, and he did both the Customs check and the Immigration paperwork (which was a silver lining that saved at least 30 minutes)...so, when he was done, the two geniuses told him I was a 'hombre mal' or BAD MAN for you who don't speekedy spanish and tried to leave the premisis without me (a major violation of thier visas) My friend the CBP officer explained it very clearly to them with many explitaves that they aren't to mess around in the good ole USA, or they'd go directly to jail, lose their visas, and get a one way ticket home with no hope for a return. That was sort of fun to watch. I wish I could spell Schaudenfreude.

Anyway, they are home now, with their (I am very sure) happy wives.

Tuesday of next week is a US Federal Holiday (Veteran's Day) We requested, and were approved to pay them overtime all day to work our ship so that we could dispatch cargo.... It was just after all of our fun with the two Geniuses that Customs called and said that they weren't going to be open for us OT or not. Great. So, we spent all the rest of the day calling customers telling them that we wouldn't be able to dispatch promised cargo on tuesday. GEE that is just my favorite thing to do, tell customers no. LOVE IT.

To add salt to my Fine Friday, Saturday started with a USCG surprise Port State Inspection. Of course, the Captain happened to be absentee. Not much fun. the nice surprise was actually no findings, which was a big relief.


HUMMM.... so, this isn't really a horrible thing for us, but a horrible thing none the less, one of the other vessels that we share the pier with had the Chief Officer pass away today (Sunday now) on their way back from Anguilla.

Hopefully next week will be better...! Hell after this weekend, I think getting stabbed in the neck would be an upturn of events.