I remember reading the paperback edition of Sigmund Freud's Introduction to Psychoanalysis when I was only 13 years old. My interest in psychology has never left me. As a maritime writer and commentator, I try whenever possible to relate certain issues to the mind —...
The European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) has made so many inspection visits to the Philippines that I've actually lost count. I had to double-check the official EMSA list to confirm the number: seven visits from 2006 to 2017. This is more than the figure for any...
Marine Café Blog has been running for more than nine years now. That is a long time, certainly long enough for me to discover or validate certain truths about the shipping industry and its various players. Not ordinary facts, but fundamental truths — not glossed over...
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...