The problem with buzzwords is that they tend to oversimplify and in effect give a false picture of reality. The latest to hit the shipping world — wellness training — is particularly problematic. The phrase is bandied about by seafarer charities and the maritime press...
To tell Filipinos to rethink what has been their main maritime activity could be asking for the moon. Ship manning has become as addictive to them as alcohol. It is their opiate — inducing the kind of foggy and false sense of contentment that French artist Michel Ange...
The UK-based Sailors' Society has harnessed social media to clamor for the amendment of ILO Maritime Labour Convention, 2006, to make wellness training mandatory for seafarers. So why not do the same to counter the whole silly idea? As a follow-up to Marine Café...
There is the hell of theology, whose gate (pictured above) was illustrated by the 19th-century French artist, Gustave Doré, for Dante's The Divine Comedy. There is also a secular hell — a place, situation or experience that is extremely unpleasant or difficult....
A recent article in The Manila Times caused a ruckus by raising the spectre of the Philippines being struck off the International Maritime Organization's (IMO) updated White List. What? The top crew supplier not making it to the roster of members states that have...
Over the years, I have seen every malpractice imaginable in Manila's manning sector. Not the least of the misdeeds is the thievery involving dollar remittances from ship crews (see my blog post “Crewing agents as money changers”). It makes me want to puke and wish...
Filipino mariners risk life and limb whilst working at sea. In the meantime, many crewing agents in Manila merrily help themselves to the dollars they send home every month. These white-collar thieves do not feel guilty in the least. They seem as contented as the...
By Captain Ardeshir Yousefi NOTE: The sea is one vast cemetery, as the above photo of the RMS Titanic wreck from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the US reminds us. More than a century has passed since the sinking of the British passenger...
Who would dare criticise the International Maritime Organization (IMO)? It is a leviathan — immense, powerful and rich. To assail its actions, one would have to be as intrepid as Musashi, the legendary Japanese swordsman shown battling a whale in Utagawa Kuniyoshi's...
I should be joining the rest of the world and making whoopee on the 'Day of the Seafarer', 25th June. But I won't. I will spend the day quietly and alone like the monk in Caspar David Friedrich's circa-1809 painting 'Der Moench am Meer / The Monk by the Sea' (pictured...
All manning agents in Manila wear two hats: crew supplier and money changer. The second function is an incidental adjunct to the first. It is not wrongful or illicit per se, but it has given rise to a silent scam that has gone on for decades. Under government rules,...
This Sunday, the 25th of June, is the 'Day of the Seafarer'. I thought I would chat with Frankie the Philosopher Cat and see if he's in a mood to celebrate. Frankie is not much into festivities, but you never know. The slogans and tributes to mariners have been so...