Psst. Nosy Tarsee hears whispers from the waters off Palawan, where a certain hulking bulk carrier — let’s call her the Coal Queen — found herself parked atop a sea mound she had no business visiting.

The lady in question was hauling more than 71,000 metric tons of Indonesian coal when she ran aground near Araceli back in May, damaging her forward bottom hull and taking on water in her ballast tanks.

The good news, Tarsee’s sources insist, is that she didn’t spill a drop and remained structurally sound. The bad news?

She’s been sitting there ever since, a very expensive paperweight waiting for someone to pry her loose.

Enter a certain salvage-and-towage outfit — Tarsee shall be coy and simply call them the Tugboat Titans — which materialized with a contract in early June for patching, discharging, and eventually refloating our beached beauty.

Quick work, some might say. Suspiciously quick, others might whisper.

Now, Tarsee is not one to accuse anyone of anything untoward. Salvage contracts happen every day, and someone has to do the dirty work of hauling coal off a stranded hull before she breaks her back on the reef.

But industry insiders are murmuring about how fast this particular outfit swooped in, and whether the selection process involved anything resembling competitive bidding — or whether a phone call and a familiar surname did the trick instead.

Tarsee also hears the marine insurers are watching closely, given the size of the cargo and the delicate matter of who bears the cost of a months-long salvage operation. Coal doesn’t discharge itself, dears, and neither do invoices.

And here’s a little seasoning for the pot: Palawan’s waters have hosted more than their share of maritime mishaps this year, and industry old-timers are starting to ask whether certain vessel operators treat grounding fines and salvage contracts as simply the cost of doing business — a rounding error against the bigger payday of moving cargo cheaply and quickly through waters they know are studded with reefs and shoals.

Tarsee will keep her binoculars trained on this one. Stay tuned, mga kaibigan — the tide always brings something back.