5.41N 0.0W
African Chronicles cont..
Today we set sail out of Ghana. Tema was probably the best port so far. Although the people are still extremely poor they seem to have more since of pride than the people at the previous ports.
The city was cleaner the roads better and more people seemed to be happier.
Oh and the good news!!! at a local casino, I won over 1,000,000.00 Since I am a day worker, the only places open for me to visit at these ports are bars and casinos. At the Bars you are required to buy at least one of the seven (mostly good looking) women drinks when they claim you as their "customer". Even if you don't want to spend the evening with the ladies or lady your getting stuck with their tab. So the casino is a nice option, drinks are free and the working girls are bringing the drinks not drinking them. Any way it was quite a thrill to win a Million!!!
The next day, Joy, the Cadet (Travis) and I went to a great Chinese dinner (Great by the way, go figure, great Chinese in Ghana) the bill was nearly 700,000.00 LOL.... $100.00 us \ 1 million crazy bucks here.
English is spoken in Ghana which makes things easier. I think all the French speaking African nations really make things more difficult. The Damn French even managed to screw up countries in Africa LOL.
Yesterday was a long ass day, worked 9 hours of OT. Hardest part was from 6am to 11:00, not even a water break for me. We had a runner wire part on us in the middle of the night, so when morning came we had to get that fixed so cargo could continue to be unloaded, then as soon as that was almost done the port made us shift the ship to make room for another one. It was defiantly a long day.
At each port, as the the Cargo Holds are emptied we hire local guys to go in and pre-clean. We try to get them to clean all the grain out as best as possible, and to remove some of the lovely stuff left in them as mentioned in a previous email. Unfortunately that is not the end for cleaning the holds. Soon it will be an all hands job for the crew, I will be heading down with broom, vacuum and fire hose in hand to clean all 7 holds. We will need to pass inspection by the Cargo Police when we get back to the US.
Right now we are headed to Ivory Coast to meet up with a Bunker Barge to refuel. We should meet it about 10pm tonight, so I am allowed to get some rest today. As we refuel over night I will be on a rotating watch with Joy to check all our fuel vents. Got to prevent those nasty oil spills. After we refuel we head straight to Galveston, TX.
My hand is getting better. I can move all my fingers and my wrist is more flexible, but it still hurts like a &%t$%r F*^#!e* . I got some meds while in Tema at a pharmacy, but it was sort of like playing wheel of fortune picking out what would help me. All the meds are European. Seemed like German and French were the most common packaging. We could not figure out a word for vicoden or oxycodone or any combinations of pain killers. I eventually think I got something with some codeine in it LOL.... does not help the hand all that much, but at night I can fall asleep with out waking up every time I move it.
Thanks for the emails, it's nice to read something from home now and then .
Take care you all.
Jesse
No comments:
Post a Comment