City boy's 120 days at sea

Dear readers,

Today is the first day logging into my blog after disappearing into sea with no phone signal or internet. Most of you wouldn't even survive a day without Facebook, especially me <.< so I almost lost it over there.

Alas, cut off from civilisation, I return (with a fuckload of new scars) to my hometown swarmed with annoying ching-chong-tongtongchiang chinese new year music meeting relatives whose names I don't know.

Right after, I spent a pissing off (worst ever) birthday with my family, Sam Insanity is finally back in the city baby. I don't want to talk about the birthday. I felt crappy so I logged into my blog out of boredom and my eyeballs almost popped out

Holy fucking cibai. Are you guys serious? I still have 400 readers coming per day! I seriously thought this blog was dead. It hasn't been updated for 4 months for god's sake.

I want you my reader, to know that you are the one keeping my blog alive. I could be out with friends right now, playing League of Legends, hitting the gym, stalking people on facebook or clubbing with buds

But no.

I am writing this entry today for you. Yes I am touched that you still give a shit about me. You have believed in me and I will not let you down (#demfeels) for I too, like you, am a netizen who loves to check out random shits on the web daily and laugh at weird shit like this

Awesome right

So this is for you my readers,

120 days at sea

Just what have I been doing out at sea? Well I have to warn you this is an extremely long post and it alone has 105 photos, so if you're not ready to read what I'm about to write you can just scroll down and look at the nice-nice photos I took instead and find the answer of why I was out there is at the bottom of the post.

(The following photos were not edited or retouched, they came straight from the camera.)

Passing by Penang at night

I have to tell you something, living at sea is shit. No not the shit as in dope, it's shit as in really shitty and hell. The first morning I flew and set foot aboard my ships for the first time, fucking nike shoes ruined with oil and shit. Everything you touch on the ship is oil and the food is just unfit to be eaten. Lesson learned city boy.

 A visible wall of rain coming towards the ship, Langkawi

So what's the big difference between living in the city and living at sea mentally? 

Well for one I've been living in the city for pretty much all my life, so being in the city right, you'd feel like you're rushing to go somewhere even when you don't have anything to do. 

Say, you decided to finally finish up some long-overdue work today; then annoying people, friends and family ask you to do stuff for them. Whether it's fetching your brother home, paying the bills, 'helping' your friends do their work while they lay back and relax. 

By the time you're done with their shit, time for yourself gets soured out, and that's why the work becomes long-overdue. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who fucking hates doing stuff for people who are lazy to do it themselves.

The reason why I could actually stand living on the ship was because when I finished work, wow I couldn't believe I actually had a few hours to myself. Seriously, my mind was clear and I felt so relaxed for the first time there's actually no one out there to bother me to do stuff because I'm on a fucking ship. 

I was free.

With the exception no one could reach me on phone, you gotta toss that mind-control away

Day 1 at the site

I have to say, I think I found the cure to my online addiction. I'd have to be put on a ship without having any internet or phone signal which was in my situation I had neither so I left my phone in my room and threw away my city habits.



Slowly I got dirtier and dirtier. Injuries, cuts, bleeding were normal. Oil is everywhere in an industrial ship and it's everywhere you touch and not even shampoo can get it off. I noticed my body changing, especially my skin tone.

And I was enjoying it. 

Normally whenever I woke up it'd be in the afternoon, and the first thing I'd do is check my phone. I'd be on Facebook, Twitter or checking out YouTube videos for hours every single day. There's just too much content out there that's so entertaining and keeps you addicted.

Seriously living in the city is not only annoying, it's extremely distracting. When the link of the internet to my brain got severed, I started to see the beautiful things out there.



Does this water not make you want to jump in it?

Like a kid opening his christmas present on the first day I wanted to jump in, from 20 meters high. The captain told my I was crazy, that there was all kinds of creatures down there, but worst of all that the undercurrent was dangerous and would sweep me away. I didn't really care and was scheming to jump

That was until

I changed my mind

because of 

 fucking 

jellyfishes.

On the same day 7 of them floated past me and I was like

Now the sea is really exciting, relaxing and fun, but the ship is a real dirty place to live in. The first thing you'd notice living on the ship is the smell of diesel. At night there'd be rats running around the ceiling, but the one of the worst reasons why living on the ship was shitty was because the food was terrible. 

They cooked pig soup and rice for me everyday for a month till one day I asked the chef to cook me a piece of chicken and 3 eggs. That's what I had every single day breakfast, lunch and dinner with no carbs for the next 3 months. 

Sometimes we'd accidentally catch something from the sea and eat it because we'd be out there for months eating the same shit over and over again

I mean look at this weird shit, wtf is that thing. The Filipinos on the ship called it a delicacy.

Like I said I had a lot of time on my hands, and after having a night jog round the ship I'd sleep around 11.00 pm which is considered damn early in the urban life. Normally I'd stay up till 3.00 or 5.00 am at home.

Work didn't start till 8.00 am so I'd walk around the ship at 7.00 am.

The best part of the day was always when I was looking at the sea. The waters make weird shapes sometimes and I'd keep snapping. The best days are when the ocean is really calm with a soft breeze.

And rarely it'd be exciting because we see sea creatures like flying fish or

I have no idea what fishes are these

The sea aside, there are nice windy days with no clouds at all and I'd look up at the clear blue sky.

But let me tell you, being in the sea the scenery right in front of you is something like a moving painting.

This is a normal day 

But most of all I always look forward to sunrise but especially golden hour.

Below is a series of a sunrise, you may think I'm wasting time but to me it's kinda amazing what we city kids are missing out on what's out there.

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

6)

7)

8)

There was one day we got all excited because a tornado was forming very near us

But then it went back into the sky -_- bastard

In daytime sometimes I'd capture sceneries where it'd look like
Lord of the rings or god was in front of you descending from heaven or some shit, don't believe me? Checkkit.

If you look closely, you can see a giant hand of god lolol

Cool right. Sunrises and daytime shots are cool, but sunsets are always the coolest.

I like this blue-ish feel because it's kinda sad and nice at the same time resembling an aurora

And at night it's hard for my camera to handle, but I got some pretty amazing shots too

^This is actually not the sun, it's the moon in orange. I know, I couldn't believe my eyes either.

My favourite shot, looks like some of the world apocalypse.

This one was shot in Langkawi, it's one of those perfect moments I was lucky to capture. 

Looks kinda like a holiday advertisement

I've never seen clouds fluffy like pillows before 

The only reason why I have shots from Langkawi is because I was rushed to the hospital

The liquid mercury that sent me to the hospital

Dying is not a joke. If I was a little bit more careless, I wouldn't be here and you wouldn't be reading this.

Here's the exact note I wrote to my mother in my phone while I was dying in case anyone found my phone.

"Dearest mom,

Today I went to the back of the ship to clear off some clay. My hands have cuts all over and the tissue membrane to my bloodstream is thin. I might be panicking, but I suspect I might have mercury poisoning. My heart is beating fast, I feel like throwing up and my hands are getting cold. If this is the case I won't live long, I know what's inside the medicine compartment and there's no cure on board.

My head is throbbing; I've experienced this before when I was stung by a 3 ft long jellyfish back when I was in the army. I don't want to die. I have so many things I've planned and so much to live for. I haven't repaid you for raising me up either and I want to take care of you when you're old. It's getting hard to breathe, I'm going to lie in bed."

I was flipping out. It was all happening too fast.

Let me tell you one thing, when you're dying you won't have time to do anything at all. The few seconds you have, that's all you'll get. I was lucky.

Anyway let's get back a brighter topic side of things and talk about work. I had some fun with sea clay from the ocean bed

Someone's got a new costume for halloween ;D

A clayball.

A canon ball.

"Wait what, a canon ball?" That's right readers.

I was treasure hunting.

And I have to tell you the ocean is massive and it is not easy at all to find anything down there. While we were at the site for 29 days. Finding nothing, we almost gave up but on the 30th day; jackpot.

So lesson learned.

Many of life's failures

Are people

Who did not realise

How close they were to success

When they gave up.

On the day I almost died, I realised the more I decided to do something I wanted to do later, the more I'd come to regret it sooner. In this case was not spending enough time with my family.

"You never miss the water until it's gone" 

And so I am thankful for getting another day to live. Thinking about it most people out there have taken their life for granted.

The best way to live is to live like today was your last day. What would you do reader?


I'll continue writing on my blog just for you. See you next post!


~Sam Insanity