Wanderings

Pitfalls of Apartment Hunting

2012-02-05T16:50:00.000+03:00

Someone's Pleasant Living Room, Al Murjan JBR?

Ooops...nearly got caught in a scam. Susie responded to a property ad and got an email with pictures of a lovely flat in JBR. Rent was reasonable and the "owner" had a good reason for renting tho' some of the email was a little odd. Ever heard Wales described as being "near Ireland"? And since when has the Thanet Offshore Wind Farm (he claims to be the Construction Manager) been near Wales either! Who is this man - well he has the longest Arabic sounding name ever: Othman Abdulrahman M.S. Sultan Alolama. Still he said he had put the apartment in the hands of a reliable international agent and had paid all the fees.

We asked if we could view the apartment in our next email and were astounded by the response which we include here in full:

Dear Susie,

Thank you for your reply. In order for you tomove into the apartment, property-instant.com will send you a packagecontaining the keys of the apartment and the tenancy contract. For this tohappen, please provide me with your complete name and the address where youwish to receive the package. I will forward these details toproperty-instant.com and they will make contact. You will receive instructionsto deposit an amount of AED5400 into their account. Property-instant.com willsend you the package in 24 hours after confirmation of your payment. Startingfrom the day you receive the package you will have 7 days to inspect theapartment and see how you accommodate. You will be ensured because the moneywill remain in property-instant.com custody, until you inspect the apartmentand declare yourself pleased. After you decide to move in, property-instant.comwill grant me access to the deposit you have made with them, and this way yourdeposit will become the payment for the first month of rent. I will also beensured because property-instant.com will keep the money in their account untilyou move in. If, for whatever reason, you decide not to rent the apartment, yousimply send back the keys and tenancy contract to property-instant.com and askfor a refund, but I know that this won't happen because you will love it.

So, if this is okay with you and you aredetermined to rent my apartment, then please send me your complete name andaddress, so I can forward your details to property-instant.com and they willstart the formalities immediately.

I wish you all the best and I'll be waiting for your answer.

Othman Abdulrahman M. S. Sultan Alolama
Thanet Offshore Wind Farm Offshore Construction Manager

e-mail: othman-abdulrahman@hotmail.com
Email Disclaimer Notice:
"The information in this communication is confidential and may be legally privileged. It is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed and others authorized to receive it. If you are not the intended recipient you are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, distribution or taking action in reliance of the contents of this information is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful."

Looks More Like A Serviced Apartment...

Off to look at Property-Instant.Com, not to be confused with an entirely different property company with a similar name in Puna that Google thought was what we wanted to look at. Alarm bells were definitely ringing when Susie found that Google search didn't produce it... a very new website then! More alarm bells on looking at the site - only email contacts, some very squeaky clean pictures of the management team and no property search facility despite some fairly authentic looking "recently listed" apartments & villas for rent being shown for each for the countries they apparently do business in.

A bit more digging turned up an almost identical screen shot in a forum warning of scams here, only thing is it's a different company "Fast-Property.Com". A polite email was sent back to Mr Othman Abdulrahman M. S. Sultan Alolama explaining that we wanted to view both the property and a draft tenancy agreement before handing over any money.

And since when did anyone use their company signature with their hotmail account?

Oh and the real Mohammed Sharif Sultan Al Olama died in 1958, he lived in a recently restored house in the Bastakia area of Dubai!

More 40th Birthday Decorations

2011-12-01T09:17:00.001+03:00

Little Red Corsa

A UAE Fan in Sharjah

My Fav so far - an old mini with a frilly top!
Beach Road, Dubai

Check out the hat!

Forty Years Old And Loving It

2011-11-28T15:10:00.000+03:00

It's strange to be living in a country which is younger than you. Later this week the UAE celebrates its fourtieth birthday, in fact to be accurate it has been celebrating for the past few weeks but the climax is on Dec 2nd National Day. Everywhere and everyone seems to be in on the act. In one supermarket flags, bunting and patriotic stetsons (yes really, large felt ones in green white and black stripes with a bit of red tinsel round the brim) and coloured lights were piled high.

In a mall car park we spotted a black Honda sports car whose bonnet sported diagonal stripes of electrical tape in green and white, trimmed with red to represent the national flag. I expect that will take some removing afterwards. Houses, car showrooms and government offices alike sport blocks of coloured illuminations and the number forty appears in lights everywhere as does the UAE flag. We even saw a museum lawn in Al Ain being spray painted with a flag ahead of the big day

The imagination of marketing teams across Dubai knows no bounds; at the Egyptian themed shopping & restaurant complex WAFI they are offering free henna and Arabic coffee in a majlis tent as well as stilt walkers. Google are planning a special doodle drawn by Emirati schoolchildren. Even Costa Coffee locally has joined in as you can see from the photo I took yesterday (Costa are in fact a UK brand but their first non-UK shop was opened in Dubai some 12 years ago).

However the best tribute yet has to be the following one as featured in yesterdays Gulf News:

I'll post some more pictures of the weird and wacky ways this nation is celebrating as I find them! Perhap we Brits could learn a lesson or two in patriotism! Meanwhile for those of you who love trivia the Gulf News has been busy digging up the nations past. In their picture gallery you'll also find some great photo's showing how oil wealth has transformed the Emiratis from tent dwellers to lovers of anything with a superlative or a sense of adventure (cf the bungee jumping shopper complete with carrier bags), there is even a shot of real snow in the UAE that fell on the mountains not on the MoE ski slope!

Delightful Weather

2011-11-17T06:56:00.001+03:00

Acres of New Sailcloth

"Sailing in the UK? In November?" most people who asked our plans for the recent Eid holiday thought we were mad and there were moments before we left Dubai when we wondered if it was the right thing to do. We had originally planned to drive to Salalah in Oman during Kevin's week off but Temptress' new sails were ready and needed a final fitting before we settled the sailmakers invoice.

As it turns out the forecast was for easterlies going round to the south. It rained on and off during friday but the banks of grey clouds meant that the above average temperatures didn't fall far at night. After a day manhandling acres of sail cloth our crew arrived and on Saturday morning Glyn & Sheila had their first taste of the Solent. We headed for the boatlift in Gosport for a quick scrub to remove several months of growth, actually much less than we had expected, just a generous coating of green slime). Then on to Cowes and a convenient supermarket for the week's provisions. From there it was down the Needles Channel with the tide for Poole and Weymouth.

The secret of keeping warm is layers and none of us got too cold, the eberspacher heater was usually fired up an hour or so before we tied up and then turned down to low all evening. There were delightful walks along fringes of Poole Harbour and the Isle of Wight footpaths south of Yarmouth, the latter with blues skies and winter sun whilst the former offered a spectacular sunset over the Purbeck Hills. Oilies, fleeces, thermal vests, fluffy salopets, socks and boots ensured each crew member was snug on deck, t-shirts and jeans all that was required below in the evening, Glyn was even spotted wearing shorts!

View from Poole Town Quay

In Poole Temptress demonstrated that if it can go wrong it will go wrong even in the most benign conditions. We tried to achor off Brownsea but our hefty CQR wouldn't hold in the hard sand so we picked up a nearby mooring whilst we ate lunch. Close by was a small pink buoy, marking a fish pot maybe? The tide turned and the wind dropped off a bit, suddenly the buoy became a mortal enemy, yards of rope catching on our rudder. Kevin and Glyn pulled up several lengths of rope tied together at intervals and attached to not one but three fishermans anchors! It took a while to disentangle the rudder. The Brownsea Island ferryman promised to pick up what proved to be someone's mooring tackle which had been washed down from further up the harbour, if we chucked over when we left. It may still be there for all we know!

Boatlift, Gosport

Happy To Be Out Sailing

We were pragmatic in our passage making a day or so later. The wind failed to free off as forecast on the beat back from Weymouth, then south of St Albans Head an unfavourable west going tide resulted in us tacking and covering much the same ground as we had just sailed The confused sea had by then despatched one of the crew to sleep in the saloon with a bucket and a blanket. So we furled up the genoa and motorsailed through the drizzle to the Needles. Reaching Yarmouth was a relief and the four of us were soon seated comfortably in the Bugle for pre-supper drinks.

From there we offered our crew a choice of destination. The tide would be favourable mid afternoon so a night sail to Newton Creek with its tricky entrance or the Hamble and a chance to experience busy shipping lanes at the entrance to Southampton Waters? They selected the latter and eagerly planned the navigation. All went well, we saw lots of ships and ferries including a liner leaving on the evening tide from Southampton, they marvelled at the numbers of boats moored in the river as Glyn at the helm picked his way through the reds and greens. Then at the top of the Hamble there was a moment of minor panic. The Skipper took the helm, his local knowledge preventing Temptress from becoming a large garden ornament on someone's front lawn as he made the sharp left hand turn. In the mornng we realised that a vital mark indicating the dogleg just prior to Swanwick was unlit.

Southsea Marina on a Grey Day

On our last day we anchored off Stokes Bay for lunch, tried and failed to get up Southsea's narrow channel an hour after low water, picked up a harbour mooring and waited. The next morning was a flurry of removing sails, cleaning Temptress inside and out and emptying water tanks. We felt extremely privileged to have had a relatively warm week's sailing in great conditions so late in the year.

Silent Sunday #9

2011-10-30T13:57:00.000+03:00

Ups and Downs of ExPat Life

2011-10-25T07:03:00.000+03:00

I read today a list of pluses and minuses of life in Dubai,which got me thinking. I've made a precis of the original and added my own comments on these:

On The Down Side

This is NOT a tax free country.
My take: The UAE has found all sorts of methods of taxing expats - Salik, hotel services, ID cards, even the compulsory exchange of a UK driving licence for a local one attract charges.
Expats are treated as second class citizens, something to be tolerated in order to get the country built. My Take: That is to be expected if you are living in another's country without becoming a citizen.
Banking is difficult
My take: I'd say different to the UK but not difficult once you take time to understand the process
Despite local claims, it does not treat male and female equally.
My take: men and women are different and in Arab culture have very different roles, we are in their country and part of the novelty of expat life is getting to know the culture and people you are living amongst
Aside from the desert, there is little beauty.
My take: Look up - nature does not hold a monopoly on beauty, many of the buildings around you in Dubai would be landmark towers in another city, simply because there are so many so close together does not mean that many are not attractive. And then there are the parks, the sailing dhows, even the wonky concrete artwork that's dotted around The Greens
Forget "great" food establishments
My take: Yes Dubai is full of clones of famous restaurants & chains from all over the world but if you are serious about your food and take the time to look you can find wonderful food from all corners of the planet.
Blocking of basic internet services such as Skype
My take: Agree that you can't download some software and that some websites are blocked but a little ingenuity such as downloading when visiting your home country and the restictions are gone.

The Pluses
(I've left this part almost unedited except to anglicise it as they speak for themselves)
* It is very safe. Because the locals are very well off and the expats are here to work, crime is very low.
* If you love the heat, you will love the weather.
* Cheap petrol.
* Great selection of produce.
* Almost every food service can be ordered and delivered to your front door (me: and almost anything else like bottled water, dry cleaning etc).
* Road systems are outstanding (me: Agree but it comes with a health warning - with over 500 traffic cameras in the Dubai Emirate alone it can be costly driving on the open road! And driving standards are often appalling).
* Easy accesss to the sea.

So to any who are contemplating expat life or are feeling jading with it - be open minded and remember that you are only here/there temporarily. The "UAE Glitz" as the author of the original coined it is something exploit, reach out and embrace. Dubai provides the opportunity to experience many different things that you will never find in one place again including some wonderful fellow expats from all over the world.

Silent Sunday - #8

2011-10-23T06:50:00.000+03:00

More Silent Sundays here

Sand Rescues

2011-10-20T12:22:00.003+03:00

Being out in the desert is much like being on a boat at sea, preparation and self-sufficiency is key to survival. In both cases you need to take with you everything you require - plenty of water, food, safety gear, plan the route in advance and wear the right clothing. It might sound a bit dramatic for a drive of less than 20 km but this week we had another reminder of how safety and recovery gear are as important as life jackets and dan buoys.

Desert drives are not done alone, it's good practise to have at least one other vehicle with you if you are heading into the dunes. When (and not if) one gets stuck or breaks down then the other can recover you. During a recent trip not one but two cars popped tyres off during the course of the morning but thanks to plenty of experience a team effort ensured these were soon fixed without even resorting to changing the wheel in either case. With the car jacked up to raise the offending wheel off the ground (some digging was also required) the tyre was rinsed in water to remove as much sand from the inside as possible, then reinflated until it was firmly in place on the rim before deflating back to the lower pressure used in the sand.

For this weeks dawn drive we were just two cars. Someway into the huge dunes close to Madam, Martin in his Landcruiser, found himself digging the rear wheels deeper into the sand on the steep slope of a bowl with his front wheels almost over the top. As JJ came back over the top to provide an assisting pull from inside the bowl the sand fell away under her grounding JJ on the crest, front wheels high off the ground. Martin extricated himself by sheer persistance and good throttle control but his next attempt to get up and out of the bowl crested the Toyota on the top too.

Martin managed to get out of this one

Both cars stuck now what? Would Kevin & Martin get to work in time, worse would we actually extricate ourselves before our water supplies ran out? We were too far from the road or habitation to walk easily anywhere, my brain was in overdrive as I took pictures of both 4x4s perched at the top of a huge bowl.

High and dry!

Sand ladders make good shovels.
(Spot Martin's Landcruiser well and truely stuck beyond Kevin)

After a quick assessment out came JJs bright orange sand ladders and, using them as shovels, Kevin & Martin started digging away behind the rear tyres. I joined in with my arms sweeping away the sand from the nearside wheel. Sand ladders are simply moulded plastic boards with lots of studs on them like a crocodile's back. Once enough sand had been cleared a ladder could be jammed under each wheel with the retrieval straps (bright pink so we can find them again) spread out away from the vehicle. Kevin got back into the driving seat, put the gears into reverse and within seconds JJ had clambered over the solid ladders back onto drivable sand. I heaved the now buried ladders out of the sand by their straps and stuck them upright nearby so we didn't forget them.

Sand ladder under the wheel ready to go

Battered sand ladders

Joining the tow straps

Attention now turned to Martin's vehicle. Kevin reversed JJ in front of the stranded 4x4 positioning her about half way up the slope. A couple of towing straps were joined using a soft shackle made of kevlar rope. The shackle is extremely strong but at the same time soft enough not to damage the loops in the towing straps. Then it was simply a matter of JJ heaving the Toyota Landcruiser sufficiently further forward for gravity to take effect. The front wheels fell forward, the back lifted out of the sand and the 4x4 slithered down the sand face effortlessly.

Another cresting later that morning

Phew! The relief all round was enormous, we were not going to be stuck here through the heat of the day dying for want of water. The rest of the drive was less eventful and all too soon it close to 7am, time to reinflate and speed back to Dubai.

Dawn Drives

2011-10-19T05:28:00.000+03:00

During the heat of the summer driving at dawn seemed a sensible way to get a fix of desert driving at the weekends without suffering dehydration and or heat exhaustion. Then we realised a drive could be fitted in before work if you are prepared to pack the car the night before and leave the apartment around 04:30. A bit like having to catch the tide out of Southsea if you want a Bank Holiday weekend in France, a little sacrifice has big rewards.

Dawn in the desert is magical. The light on the sand is amazing, the colours all sorts of hues from the violets and blues of the sky to the orangey red of the sand in the new day's sun. The low angle shows up the wind swept tops in sharp relief and even the pylons rising out of the misty distance appear beautified. Here are a few pictures from this weeks drive in which I have attempted to capture some of the magic (click on the pictures for a larger view):

05:45 - Just getting light as we deflate

Between Madam and Schweib the dunes are high

The light seems to hang over the dunes

A sea of sand

Virtually no grass or shrubs - rare in the sands here

A big bowl scoured clean to bare rock

The sand is red in the morning light

Sea Fever

2011-09-22T10:28:00.000+03:00

Grandpa & Lilli

It has been a while since my last post as we've been busy travelling again. Kevin has been crossing the time zones again zig-zagging across the African continent from Egypt to Nigeria (via Dubai) then to Jo'burg for a week's holiday, on to Cape Town and back to Jo'burg. On returning to Dubai he almost immediately departed for a week in Ghana arriving back this morning at 7am.

Bathtime at home

Meanwhile I was able to spend almost three weeks with the JvN's, lazing by the pool, playing with granddaughter Lilli and generally enjoying the cooler Spring weather on offer. During the Eid holiday we all decamped to a static caravan by the river in Sabie, a lovely quiet spot with monkeys in the rain forest covering the hilltops across the river (actually they qualify as mountain tops as we were so high up!).


Holiday home from home at Merry Pebbles, Sabie

The "Merry Pebbles" of the Sabie River

Back in Dubai we are once more getting into the swing of things as the temperatures begin to fall to levels more hospitable to outdoor activities with sailing, camping and BBQs events already in the diary. Returning home reminded us that much as we love Jo'burg and its fairly equable climate, it is just too far from the sea. I don't need to be in or on the sea every day, just a glimpse of it sparkling in the distance will satisfy but better to be at sea with the stars etched across night sky overhead. Swimming pools, babbling rivers and massive thunderstorms over 300 miles inland just aren't an adequate replacement for what John Masefield aptly called "Sea Fever":

I MUST go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

The Ups and Downs Of An Air Mile Millionaire

2011-08-22T08:56:00.000+03:00

Kevin is away travelling this week for the first time in several weeks and as often seems to happen circumstances have conspired to make a punishing schedule. He is not complaining, it's his job and he loves it.

This time though the reality of living and working outside of Europe is seeping into our lives a bit more than usual. He left yesterday for a long planned trip to Egypt, a country experiencing more unrest but nothing to really worry either of us. He'll be back late on Tuesday night, in fact it'll probably be Wednesday by the time he walks in the door. Then due to visa difficulties a week or so ago he sets off early Wednesday morning to a delayed set of meetings in parts of Nigeria where he is required to have an armed escort. Recent reports of kidnapping and shooting in more northern areas are worrying but he is confident about the arrangements made for his safety. The itinery is airports, hotels and government offices in a couple of major cities along the coast so hopefully pretty low risk .

[Meanwhile the Gulf Widow is amusing herself with more mundane things like housework, making some Christmas presents (yes really!) and a coffee and craft morning on Tuesday. Having said that I don't miss the travelling I used to do when working. I too enjoyed it but brief sojourns in airports, offices and hotels can't be said to introduce anyone to the culture and people of a nation.]

After his rather unscheduled trip to Nigeria, Kevin will return to Dubai for another brief overnight stay before flying to South Africa for our Eid vacation week followed by a week and a half of work there. He will have clocked up a good few thousands of air miles by the time he lands in Jo'Burg on Sunday lunchtime. The good news is that I get to spend almost three weeks with our granddaughter Lilli (and her parents) as I am flying out to Jo'burg as originally planned on Friday at four o'clock in the morning. I might even return to Dubai on the same plane as my husband unless of course his travel plans change again over the course of the next three weeks!

Silent Sunday - #7

2011-08-21T10:00:00.001+03:00

More Silent Sundays here

Navigation Aids Part II

2011-08-20T19:21:00.002+03:00

On Clarionet there is a switch marked Decca which nowadays ensures the bilge pump runs in reverse (a story for another day!). Long before I ever stepped foot in a yacht, Decca was as hightech a navigation aid as they come. Prior to that most leisure sailors including offshore racers, relied heavily on their navigator's calculations of course to steer and if the mark or destination was upwind, on the strategic decisions of when to tack. Always aim to be both upwind and uptide of your destination!

On approaching the French coast the crew would lookout for recognisable signs that they were where they thought they should be. Even as recently as a dozen years ago despite the advent of GPS I can recall peering through the fog at the wall off Cherbourg wondering whether we were at the easternmost section or the central part. The skipper decided not to risk it and rather than turn to port in search of the eastern entrance turned to starboard. There followed a long uncomfortable motor into wind and tide until we eventually located what turned out to be the western entrance but better that than pile into the rocks to the east of the other entrance.

All of my sailing has been done with a GPS to hand ensuring with a few exceptions like the infamous incident when Temptress alarmingly appeared to be flying above Dartmoor for an hour or so, we know exactly what our longitude and latitude are. Since we bought Temptress, a chart plotter through electronic wizardry displays the boat and its track through the water on an electronic version of Her Majesty's Admiralty's charts.

Temptress' original green and black chart plotter gave up the ghost ages ago. So for the last few years we've pressed into service the boat laptop as a subsitute, using a variety of navigation software to plan routes and record our progress. Our faithful Toshiba almost reached its eleventh birthday despite a life spent entirely in a salt-filled, damp environment, a testament to Japanese manufacturing both in terms of longevity and in terms of ability to survive such an environment. This summer it was time to source replacement technology. The laptop part was fairly straightforward - low energy consumption dictated by long periods on 12 volt batteries means no unecessary peripherals so a netbook is ideal and easily fits the space above the chart table. Kevin sourced a little Inspiron Duo at cost from his colleagues at Dell whilst I as Chief Navigator and software "guru" was tasked with finding our next navigation program, a task I approached with relish as its ages since I've had to review any software market and even better not to be doing it in a professional capacity! So what was I looking for:

What chart formats are supported and how much of the world do they cover?
There are almost as many chart formats as there are navigation software publishers. There are pros and cons of each which I won't bore you with here. My main concern is coverage for our potential sailing area with plans for a future including sailing around Scotland then onwards towards The Falklands and South Africa before turning east (or even west) towards New Zealand. And the cost of future purchases must be sustainable on a limited income. In some countries like the USA charts are virtually free, in others the authority concerned keeps their production, sale and updates on a commercial footing (HM's Hydrographer being the chief example). A program that suppports as wide a range of formats as possible is to therefore be preferred to ensure best coverage at least cost.

Does it contain a tidal database and what source is this?
This point is related to the next so I'll just mention that using a US tidal database to calculate predicted tidal heights and times for UK ports can lead to some differences due to diffiering input data and algorithms used. In turn this can catch out the unwary sailor expecting it to be highwater with 3m above chart datum on their arrival at a port. Knowing the underlying source and its potential accuracy of predictions for a region can help avoid running aground or worse.

Will it perform Course To Steer (CTS) calculations?
GPS navigation is point to point ie the GPS determines the angle and distance in a straight line from your starting position to your next waypoint. This though fails to take into account the impact of six hours of east going springtide off Cherbourg which may help or seriously hinder your voyage across the Channel. If you can work out when to leave and what course to steer to ensure that the tide helps the boat along rather than fight it then the voyage will be faster and you'll potentially cover less ground. It's all a matter of vectors for those of you mathematically inclined but rather than use the Admiralty Tidal Atlas plus simple sums thrown in with a bit of trigonometry, it's faster to use a computer to calculate all the possibilities and provide you with the best time to leave and the CTS. This all assumes too that the wind is in your favour (see below).

Does it display info from the cockpit instruments?
Nothing is more irritating than to have to heave yourself out of the navigators seat to check the trip or the wind in order to record it in the log especially if as cook/navigator you have yet to put your oilies on! On Clarionet too, the helmsman usually will complain that you are either in the way or the red light coming up the companionway is destroying their night vision. So having everything at hand at the chart table makes it much faster to record the necessary in the log. BTW on boats over 14m in length SOLA requires that a log be kept except when in waters like the Solent so on Temptress this means we have to record even short hops to Brighton.

Can it overlay weather data?
Wind forecasts form an essential part of the navigators toolkit ensuring that the boat stays safe as well as sails efficiently. To see the wind overlaid on the chart and see what you can expect some many miles down the track is useful especially in conjunction with tidal data when deciding when to tack or whether to seek shelter in a closer port.

Ditto AIS
AIS stands for Automatic Identification System which in this case means ships not aircraft (it's not a hugely intuitive term). Info from transmitting boats, ie all commercial shipping and some leisure boats, includes useful items such as course and speed as well as interesting stuff like last port, next port and cargo. The real interest to the average sailor in the middle of an ocean is will it hit me? By overlaying the AIS data on the chart with our track, the closest point of approach can be calculated by the software and not some addled navigator. Useful especially when the vessel is somewhere over the horizon or lost in fog and making 25 or more knots (nautical miles per hour) in your general direction. The horizon is usually about 20 nautical miles from the deck so a boat doing this sort of speed can be on you in less than an hour giving little room for manouevering by a yacht doing 6 knots or less.

ARPA/MARPA
Similar to AIS, this is data from the radar which enables collision avoidance, if the radar can be configured correctly, a problem we have yet to resolve on Temptress.

Can it calculate Great Circle routes?
When sailing across oceans the Mercator projection commonly used in local maps or charts becomes inaccurate because the sphere has been flattened to make the the map creators job easier. The great distances involved mean in turn that a straight line between two points on the chart is no longer the shortest distance, a circular route roughly following the Earth's curvature is. Software that can automatically create this arc between two points on the Earths surface is useful though not essential as long as the navigator is aware of the issue.

All this at what price?
The average cruising sailor, and we will be no exception, has a very small budget. Savings are for retirement and our potential future income small just covering day to day expenses with a little bit to spare so we wouldn't want to have to pay large sums to buy charts for new areas nor for chart, tidal or software updates. Some charting packages are aimed at the professional user, some at the local (mainly USA or UK ) sailor. I was looking for a program that is somewhere in the middle - affordable intially but easy on the purse later (even if we have to forego updates) whilst providing the features and chart coverage we might require. As with many things on a boat there are bound to be some compromises.

Conclusion
After looking at a round dozen of software products, some were discounted quickly on coverage being either too USA or too UK oriented, and some on price leaving a handful of contenders: Software on Board (SOB) from Digiboat, SeaPro from Euronav, and Maxsea. The first was discounted as it did not calculate a CTS and help is provided in .PDF format, not the easiest thing to have to look through when at sea in a tight spot plus the interface was hard to use. The latter Maxsea for not having CTS or Great Circle unless you purchase an expensive add on, and a user interface that is anything but intutitive especially at sea (I've used this one on other boats). That just left the reviewer with EuroNav's Seapro, already tried and tested on board Temptress in rough and smooth conditions. I did objectively try to find another tool as I love new gadgets but this time it seems I failed! Sea Pro, even allowing for our familiarity with its slightly non-Windows standard mouse handling, installs and finds your instruments without too much configuring of com ports, it has a fairly affordable chart coverage of most of the world at the level of detail we'd require, has almost all the features we were looking for and the UI is easy to use at sea. All in all a close race but won on some key features and the price was right.

It does leave us with plotting great circle routes by hand but I'm sure it'll be a useful skill to acquire. An honourable mention should also go to Navsim's SailCruiser which had one of the best user interfaces I've come across in PC software (intuitive and easy to reach the things you need at sea) plus a unique tool for calculating time to go based on wind angle and tacks required. It was a just little too USA oriented for my liking.

Below is a summary of the findings (sourced from software publishers own websites, demo copies and reviews). It is as accurate as I could get at the time of publishing this survey but I bear no responsibility for an inaccuracies that might have crept in. In fact if any publisher of navigation software would like to provide their product a fuller trial I'd be happy to hear from them:

Product

Price

Chart Types

Tidal Data

CTS

GPS

Inst

AIS

ARPA

GRIB

Gt Circ

OpenCPN

£ FOC

1,2,7

Nuno

£120.00

Neptune Planner +

£195.00

Maptech

£256.00

4,2

SOBv9 (Digiboat)

£302.00

SeaPro

£360.00

2,6,7

Y (£39.95)

Maxsea

£420.00

Seatrack UK

£480.00

1,4,9

Raymarine RNS 6.2

£512.00

1,2,9

Nobletec Admiral

£850.00

1,10

Rosepoint

$399

2,3,4,6

NavSim Sailcruiser

$549

1,2,3,4,7,8

Happy to supply my spreadsheet summary to anyone who'd like it. It includes some extra notes on each product, indicated mostly by the asterisks above but left out here to avoid an even longer blog! I would also mention as a retired software product manager that many of the above listed websites leave a lot to be desired in terms of design and navigation, some will try the patience of any who venture there, you have been warned!

Chart Types Key:
1	Cmap	NT+, MAX or MAX Pro (CM93)
2	BSB	(Raster)
3	Softchart
4	Maptech
5	Mapmedia
6	ARC/AVCS
7	S57 vector
8	Geotiff
9	Navionics
10	NV Charts	Mostly Caribbean

Sorting Out Navigation Part I

2011-08-15T14:16:00.000+03:00

Whether in a boat on the sea or in a 4WD in the desert you have to work out your own route to follow. In both cases there are plenty of aids to guide your choice (maps/charts, land/coast-scape, tidal information, prevailing winds etc) but once you are out there you have to make your own decisions and it's useful to have electronic aids to provide your postion in relation to where you are heading. Recently the laptop used for navigation and tracking purposes on Temptress died and as we'd also got a bit fed up having to scroll around the tiny screen on our hand held GPS to review what was coming up, a big navigation aids overhaul has been taking place in the Harris household through the summer.

Firstly what was important about the aids we'd been using and what did we really want to improve on? In the desert our requirements were easy to identify with the first being our main reason for upgrading:

A bigger screen, whilst remaining handholdable (if my camera is anything to go by sand and laptops won't mix).
A compass screen clearly showing direction and distance to the next waypoint.
Support for Geocaching.
Interchangable route finding between offroad/marine mode (ie straightline navigation between two points) and on the road navigation with turn by turn directions, sharing waypoints between modes.

As we've already invested in both BlueCharts and Garmin streetmaps for the Middle East region, the choice of manufacturer was inevitable. It was just down to which model. Garmin promote their GPSMap 620 with the strapline "navigate by land and sea". With both a marine and a road use mode and a huge 11.4 x 6.9cm screen menaing the device just about fits in the hand, it appeared to meet our requirements based on the specifications and reviews I read. Unfortunately the moment the SD card is swapped, it became perfectly clear that this gadget had a big pitfall. In reality it is two GPS's in a single body. To use seacharts it needs to be in marine mode which doesn't recognise the street maps and vice versa. Any waypoints entered are unique to the mode in use confirming the split personna. The lovely people at Marine Superstore were happy to give me a full refund and I headed back to my laptop for some more research.

Garmin Montana 600 (credit: Garmin)

Since I'd done my original search back in early June Garmin had released in the UK the chunky, industrial looking Montana 600. The screen is slightly smaller than the GPSMap620 at around 9x5cm but that is still almost three times the area of our trusty GPS78s. Basically the buttons have been replaced by a big touch screen so you can choose to have menus or map on display and as the display can be in potrait or landscape it should be easy to see as far ahead as you need. Cotswold Outdoor at Hedge End had an offer including a complete set of UK Ordnance Survey maps. At last, only a month late, I had a birthday present from Kevin! The Montana's billed as a go anywhere product - street, water or offroad and Kevin happily played about swapping our various SD cards when I returned to Dubai with it but the acid test would always be actually using it .

I took the Montana driving without a auto-cradle as there were none in stock (so no lovely-Emma voices to guide me) and it got me safely to my brother's home in rural Gloucester from Southsea and back via non-motorways, the Montana's beeps alerting me to an upcoimg turn. Back in Dubai we've been for an on-road drive around and about. Within the accuracy of the maps we failed to get lost even on the rapidly being reclaimed by the sand remains of the uncompleted Tiger Woods golf development (roads here tend to appear or disappear faster than the map-makers can keep up). Changing mode even within a route seems fairly easy and there are lots of gizmo features still to investigate like the barometric plotting.

On Saturday we took our new best friend shopping to buy it a suitable carry case. An military-styled kharki camera case from National Geographical fitted the bill with the added bonus that the beltloop is sturdy enough to fit round the passenger hand hold on Jeanie Jeep's dashboard...who needs an auto-cradle? One small niggle still to iron out - on plugging in the USB 12v charger also purchased on saturday (the power input is different to our other Garmins) the Montana insists on saving all the waypoints and tracks then going into "PC connect mode". Guess I need to read the manual downloaded (there is only a quickstart guide in the box).

A couple of trials left now - a drive in the desert and a sail off the coast of Dubai both of which need offroad or marine mode. Plus I need to download to it all our Geocache and desert driving waypoints from my laptop.

In Part II I'll share the results of my review of chartplotting software and how we made the decision not to rock the boat!

Summer Cruising

2011-07-12T11:42:00.001+03:00

Dawn breaks over Brighton

Before leaving Dubai we promised each other that once the Classic Channel Regatta was over, our summer holiday sailing would not include long overnight passages and would include plenty of anchoring and generally messing about in boats, in short a lovely relaxing time together. So how come Monday morning found me sitting in Brighton marina having just undertaken a nineteen hour passage mostly under spinnaker from St Peter Port, Guernsey leaving with the tide at 10:30am the previous day? Fresh as a daisy - definitely not!

Has Temptress spent a night at anchor since leaving her berth last Sunday? Not a chance, wind and weather have generally conspired against us. Two squally nights in St Helier were preceded by a damp trip north west from Paimpol trying to avoid the wet and windy weather forecast for Brittany. We had headed south from Swanage originally to "get below the low" that was almost stationary over Ireland and the UK. But whilst in France we did have a great day out on the "Train Vapeur" up the Trieux River to Pontrieux.

Train Vapeur

Sitting in a fifties carriage pulled by a coal burning, steam and smut belching little engine from the nineteen thirties the views across the river valley were beautifully green and sunny. Included in our ticket was a halt at an infamous house for crepes and "cidre" (an alltogether different drink to English cider) together with some Breton music. The house, now a visitor centre, was the potential motive for a crime with no body and no witnesses only circumstantial evidence. The victim vanished without trace on a business trip and his friend Seznec was sentenced to a life of hard labour because it is claimed he stood to gain the house and land from the deed. The family fight on for his pardon even though he has been dead for many years.

Seznec's Motive?

Then it was onto Pontrieux where we took a horse drawn carriage from station to town. A slightly scruffy hotel with no sense of colour (the dining room had leaf green window frames with bright ochre and dark red walls and was furnished with thouse awful '80s blond wood chairs upholstered in pale pinks and greens) offered a cheap, four course lunch with more of the local cider.
Somehow we dodged the worst of the showers and even managed a walk along the moorings down by the station. We both felt slightly sad that Temptress will never reach this lovely spot as her air draft is too high for the 17m suspension bridge just above Lezardrieux.

Breton Musicians

The Lovely Trieux River

Pontrieux

Stormy Skies Approaching St Helier, CI

Trying to avoid more wet weather we headed for the Channel Islands. In St Helier we made it to a lovely fish restaurant Barqueiro run by a Madeiran family, arriving like drowned rats but made very welcome despite dripping all over their floor. This gem of a place is hidden away inside the back of the Fish Market and well worth a visit. Kevin had a tasty steak and I devoured a large helping of Monk Fish pieces wrapped in ham on crushed new potatoes, all washed down with a bottle of Agentinian Malbec. So crossing the Channel for a second time (the first crossing was as I mentioned earlier with the Classic Channel Regatta) during our sojourn in Europe has provided some memorable moments even if it wasn't quite as envisaged.

Silent Sunday - #6

2011-06-19T06:08:00.002+03:00

More Silent Sundays here

Crossed Wires

2011-06-14T19:49:00.001+03:00

You can't escape British Gas even in Dubai.... my UK mobile, switched on because I needed a UK number it contained, rang this evening. At the other end was someone trying to sell me a gas contract for a house we've not lived in since early 2006! Are their dialing systems the source of the annoying missed calls from Glasgow & Liverpool yesterday and today, when my phone has rung once and then hung up before I could reach it several times?

Meanwhile with hubby away (again) I was bored with cooking for one so ordered a takeaway. Having repeated the address for delivery several times even spelling the name of our building "Al Arta 1" twice, I was told it would be 45 mins minimum probably an hour, which suited me as I needed to pop out to the ATM before paying for my supper. As I drove back into the underground parking some 20 mins or so later I spotted a delivery scooter from the Copper Chimney arriving, I just beat him up the lifts to the apartment door. Not only was it delivered promptly, there was sufficient to feed me several times over, delicious and fragrant vegetable biryani together with fish in a lovely cashew cream sauce. Supper anyone?

Finally the intriguing tale of some crossed lines. When I switched on the aforementioned mobile a day or two ago it was sent a text;
"Hi sent email with details of flights etc for sat 25 jun. Cheap deal on monarch has2 b booked today 9th 2 get good rates! hope you make it! Cherry x"
Not certain that Monarch fly to or from Dubai and the only Cherry I've known was unlikely to sign an SMS with a kiss so it definitely wasn't meant for me so being a good hearted citizen I responded.
"Think u snt txt re flights to wrong no."
Then when I turned my phone on again today another text arrived:
"I did then we spoke on phoner earlier in week! Still ok if u want 2 change yope u are feeling better now. Cherry. x"
Ah well, it left me wondering who Cherry is and who is the friend who might have been visiting but now it appears isn't!

Somethings Remain The Same Wherever You Are

2011-06-13T15:36:00.000+03:00

Jeanie Jeep

Took Jeanie Jeep in for a service at the main dealers Trading Enterprises yesterday. "We'll call you when it's ready." We left them my mobile number, exchanged JJ for a piece of paper and took a taxi home before Kevin left for the airport. By 5pm no contact from the garage so I called. No answer. They open at 7am so at 8am this morning I try again;
"Yes ma'am your jeep is ready, the service is done but they couldn't find a problem with the "jerking" so perhaps it's the way the customer is driving. Please come here at 9am and one of our technicians will drive with you if required."
They won't win any prizes from me for tact but as Kevin is the official owner and here I am always a "housewife" (as officially designated on my visa) it was to be expected!

Collected the car shortly after 9 this morning and decided a test drive wasn't needed, it was already 40° outside. The staff were friendly, efficient and extremely helpful, explaining everything that had been carried out in detail rather than simply handing over the bill. I quickly forgave the smiling, quiet Ranesh for not calling me back yesterday and for his lack of tact this morning or was the latter faux pas down to my misunderstanding his Indian English? The cost was just 888 AED (just under £150) which seems quite cheap compared with the extortionate amounts BMW Mini used to extract from me in the UK. Or does it appear value for money given the difference in size between the two vehicles?

My Much Loved Mini Cooper S

The garage BTW is in an anonymous, dusty grey industrial unit just off the SZR on Al Manara St East. Step inside and there is an inside parking area, sparkling plate glasss windows with a smart reception beyond and behind the desks views of servicing and repairs being carried out. Coffee and the papers are provided as is comfortable seating in the waiting area. UK dealers could do worse than visit Dubai on a field trip.

Silent Sunday - #5

2011-06-12T09:01:00.000+03:00

More Silent Sundays here

Cooling Facts

2011-06-07T07:45:00.000+03:00

We've realised over the past few weeks that there is a world of difference between 23° and 24°. The latter feels decidedly warm and cosy like a winters evening by the fire and the former slightly cool but not overly chilly when in a t-shirt and shorts.

To obtain this sort of climate indoors when outside it is hot and muggy with overnight temperatures rarely as low as 25° air conditioning is a must. The recirculating fans hum their low thundery rumble day and night as warm air is drawn in from the apartment, chilled, effectively dried as any moisture condenses out (this is what went wrong in Bahrain last year when we returned from a few weeks away to a disaster), cleansed by filters that remove pollen and dust then blown out again.

Usually the open plan kitchen/dining/living area is set to 24 and the bedrooms to 23, the latter being about the warmest you can get a comfortable nights sleep under a thin duvet. The apartment's two systems don't always understand our requirements for comfort properly and often waver around 22.5° when set to 23 or a sticky 24.2° - 24.5° when set to the higher temperature. Opening or closing bedroom doors helps - a balancing act we are learning to play!

However we apparently should be grateful as many in Dubai are on a district cooling system where chilled air is produced centrally and then piped into homes. This results in a flat fee per square metre plus an additional electricity cost for circulating the air. And the air isn't always as chilled as it might be depending on the overall demand from all the users on the system. At least we are only at the mercy of our erratic thermostats and our DEWA bill which is surprisingly low considering the aircon is on 24x7 at present. The reasonable electricity bill is in part down to the compact size of our apartment (1,021 sq m) and the fact that being an apartment with neighbours all round means we mutually benefit from each others cooling as well as the icey blast that the buildings' owners fill the common areas with.

But I am already looking forward to that moment in the Autumn when the wretched noise can be turned off for a few months and the windows opened. I have sympathy with tinnitus sufferers, if we're busy or the TV is on the noise seems to disappear but sitting quietly reading or right now writing this, the constant thundering drives you mad.

Silent Sunday

2011-06-05T07:16:00.001+03:00

More Silent Sundays here

War InThe Green Mountains

2011-05-30T06:57:00.001+03:00

Ruins of Tanuf

Sometimes you arrive somewhere and are completely thrown. A ruined village in Oman destroyed by RAF bombs?

After a relaxing stay at the heavenly Al Bustan Palace Hotel just south of Muscat, on Saturday we stopped for a spot of geocaching on the outskirts of the village of Tanuf. The info supplied about the cache intimated that the deserted village to the north of modern Tanuf had been bombed by the RAF in the early fifties during the Jabal Akhdar (or Green Mountain) War. As this was before either of us were born it was hardly surprising that we hadn't heard of it so I decided to do some research on Sunday. In fact it turned out I was two years old when this little piece of British-Omani history drew to a close.

The origins of the dispute were in oil, religious traditions and absolute rule. The Saudis laid a tenuous claim to the Buraimi Oasis in Oman close to the UAE/Omani/Saudi borders because Aramco (Saudi's state owned oil company) believed there was oil to be found there. There was already some dispute between the tribes of the interior of Oman who believed in appointing their religious leaders (Imams) by election and the Sultan who, from Muscat, ruled absolutely over Oman. The country at that time played a role in managing the neighbouring Trucial States established by the British in 1835 to halt piracy in the Persian Gulf. (The Trucial States or Trucial Oman would eventually give rise in the seventies to the modern day UAE with Qatar and Bahrain as separate kngdoms but in the early days of Rock and Roll all that was still in the future.) The Trucial Oman Levies or Scouts were an armed force of Omanis commanded by British Officers and NCOs who kept the peace. The individual states were mostly responsible for their own internal affairs and the poeple ruled by their sheikhs while the British concentrated on foreign business on Trucial Oman's behalf.

Storm Clouds Over The Akhdars

To understand further this dispute you have to know a little of the geography of Oman. Much of the land mass lies south of the Al Hajar Al Gharbi (Al Hajar) mountain range that runs parallel with the northern coast of Oman from north of the Tropic of Cancer across to the eastern coast separating the coastal lands of Muscat from the southern desert that reaches almost as far south as Salalah on the Arabian Sea. This desert is the Omani section of the Empty Quarter which stretches north into Saudi Arabia, one of the largest sand deserts in the world and one of the most inhospitable landscapes anywhere on earth. Historically the Sultans of Muscat held little influence over the nomadic tribes of the interior where slavery was still practised and the rifle was a badge of manhood. In Muscat they were seafarers and merchants looking to India, Persia and the East for their wealth.

The Sultan asked the British for assistance in removing the Saudis who responded by ensuring that the tribal leaders were their men, providing them with arms. The British were in a quandary and already not popular with Egypt, Syria and the UN amongst others due to previous efforts in the region however wanting to protect their oil interests and relations with Oman they sent in some Trucial Oman Scouts to oust Imam Ghalib Bin Ali and the Saudis.

The Akhdar range includes the highest peaks in Oman including Jebal Shams rising to almost 3,000m. These mountains cause the rains to fall (we saw plenty of thunderstorms and experienced a refreshing downpour ourselves on Saturday) so there are lots of trees and agriculture in the wadis leading down from them, hence the name "Akhdar", Arabic for green. The range thrusts up from almost sea level with little in the way of foothills, just sharp jutting rock rising vertically. Transits across the range from coast to interior are few and far between even today, so fighting was tough for the Scouts.

Tanuf nestles below the mountains on the inland side. To support the Sultan's troops the RAF ultimately bombed several sites along the mountains to drive the rebels out, including the town of Tanuf. This small forgotten war dragged on from 1954 until January 1959.

Sand of the Arabian Pennisula gives way to
bare rock in the Hajar Range

The UN was due to to discuss the region and the British had committed to withdrawing their troops by April 1959, before the talks commenced. In January of that year a decisive push was made and in less than three months achieved what the previous five years of skirmishes had failed to deliver. The rebel leaders made their way to Saudi Arabia and laid low. A small number of rebels continued laying mines brought in from there through the summer of 1959 but this ceased as the British and a new Omani paramiltary force reduced the arms smuggling.

At the time Cairo Radio reported that in the attack on the Jebel Akhdar, 120,000 British troops had been employed and Moscow embellished the story further, claiming 13,000 paratroopers had been dropped. In fact, barely 1,000 men had been involved, of which only 250 were British.

Further Reading:
1. SAS involvement: Britian's Small Wars
2. Background on the Buraimi Dispute: Jebel Akhdar War
3. Laurence Geary's Oman Blog: The Jebel Akhdar War

Silent Sunday

2011-05-29T07:13:00.001+03:00

Save The Children Vaccine Campaign

2011-05-23T23:00:00.027+03:00

I've just read a post by BrinkofBedlam that I thought was worthwhile sharing to publicise the work of Save the Children and their latest and most ambitious campaign:

In January Save the Children launched it’s most ambitious campaign to date, No Child Born to Die. Every year 8 million children under five die from illnesses we know how to treat or prevent, such as diarrhoea and pneumonia. Save The Children is focusing on the provision of vaccinations and healthcare workers. In June there is a meeting in London hosted by David Cameron and attended by other world leaders. Save The Children aims to make as much noise as possible to ensure the funding shortfall for vaccinations (4.7 billion) is met by all the donor countries. If this funding gap is met the vaccines that could then be provided would save the lives of millions of children.

This week 3 bloggers/ vloggers are going to Mozambique to follow the journey of a vaccine from the coldstore in the city right down to a rural community. They will write, make films and tweet about their experiences, the children and families they meet and the challenges of “cold” vaccinations in hot countries.

This Challenge is designed to support their work – to spread the word about their No Child Born to Die campaign and to highlight the funding shortfall for vaccines. We are so lucky that our children [and grandchildren] can have the future they've always dreamed of. We have all the things we take for granted in our everyday lives - medicines, education and even clean water from our taps.

So our challenge is simple:

1) Get your child [or grandchild] to either draw or craft a self portrait of themselves now or in the future.

2) Sign the Save the Children petition and then pass it onto your friends

3) Write a blog post about it as soon as possible, including info about Save the Children and the petition. We want as many people linked up AND signed up the petition by Sunday 29th May 2011

4) Tag 8 fellow blogger friends

5) Come back and link up your posts, so we can all share your craftiness

6) If you have time, visit each other posts and say hello!

And don’t forget to follow all the action in Mozambique on Twitter using the hastag #PassItOn.

I've added my name to the petition so now why don't you?

oh and I'm tagging @JewelLucia, @TravellingSailsman, @GreenShoot, @DolfijnsTravels, @WGAW @OnAnIslandInTheSun @OnKudu, @FollowThe Boat - its up to each of you whether you want to take part or not but I believe this is one challenge where what we share can make a difference.

This page requires Flash Player version 9.0.124 or higher.

Wadi Bashing

2011-05-23T07:15:00.000+03:00

When the temperatures rise one place that is theoretically cooler in the UAE Pennisula are the mountains, I say theoretically because last Saturday we experienced temperatures over 45° C at several thousand feet above sea level. The Al Hajar al Gharbi (Western Al Hajar) Mountains, rise in places to 2,500 metres and separate the eastern Al Batinah coast in Fujairah from the rest of the UAE. From the mountainous Musandam Peninsula the Al Hajars extend southeastward for about 150 kms to the southernmost UAE-Oman border on the Gulf of Oman. The range actually continues well into Oman reaching the across the country towards its eastern coast but is known by other names.

In this hot arid zone the mountains are where it rains the most, as much as three times the amount that falls elsewhere in the UAE ie around 13 inches in a year. The locals over many hundreds of years have become expert at capturing these rains in deep well-like cisterns or behind dams in valley bottoms and using the water over the coming months for agriculture. The ancient irrigation system of falaj mean the narrow valley bottoms are quite green and shady whilst the bare pinkish rock of the mountain tops is usually high enough to catch cooling breezes off the sea. A network of tracks has for the most part not been subjected to tarmac though modern roads have been and are being pushed through to the larger villages while towns like Dibba and Masafi have dual carriageways connecting them to the cities on the west coast.

As you drive north east to the mountains from Dubai via the lovely town of Al Dhaid with its rows of shops lining the streets (not a western brand or chain in sight) the rocks suddenly push up from the flatish dunes like teeth bursting through the surface of the Earth. If it's windy and dust fills the air then you don't see the mountains until you are almost upon them. There is nothing old and worn about these pinnacles of rock, their sharp, ragged shapes are hewn by the forces that thrust them up, while the wind has served only to hone and striate the surfaces further. Ice and water have had little part to play in their formation.

Once off the tarmac a four wheel drive is essential although you might see the occasional low slung saloon driven cautiously by a local heading for the nearest road. Expats and locals alike love "wadi bashing" - driving a 4x4 over the rough tracks originally created for and by donkeys and human feet. Winding up along the dried river bed to its source then snaking up the moutainside to the pass and finding another wadi down toward the sea. At times the rushing water has carved out deep corkscrew-like canyons so that you can drive a couple of kilometres yet only be a few hundred metres further on. At other times a series of hairpin bends with scary drops haul you out of one watercourse to the mountain tops where amazing vistas open up. The driving is extremely rough and bumpy, sometimes even Jeanie Jeep struggles to find a smooth enough surface to follow but the rewards are worth it. Tiny green plots filled with grass or sweetcorn at this time of the year shaded by ficus or palms then vast views over rocky tops populated only by a few birds and pylons.

It's not a hospitable place (though the locals are extremely friendly), you need to take plenty of water, fuel and something to sit on (rocks are hot) but the effort is worth it. As you drive through places like Wadi Tayyibah it's difficult to reconcile that the villagers with their dependence on water for the sucess of their small farms, live within an hours drive of a city with some of the most excessive, crazy life styles anywhere on the planet. So before the tarmac reaches much more of this amazing corner of our world it's worth taking a peek at a place and a way of life that harks back to an age before jet planes, motorcars and sealed roads.

Silent Sunday

2011-05-22T07:17:00.001+03:00

Silent Sunday

2011-05-15T09:49:00.000+03:00

A Three For One Break

2011-05-08T10:56:00.000+03:00

If you have been wondering why I've not posted anything recently its because we've been busy sailing a newly fettled Temptress with gleaming topsides, clean teak decks and no green on the canvas work. Thx JWS! Out of sight a lot more has been sorted too by One Degree West and rigger Martin Leaning in this refit which left Kevin's wallet reelling. Much of it was work we'd normally do ourselves but time is precious when you live in another country to your boat. So get yourself a cup of coffee and bear with me if this post is a tad long but I hope you'll enjoy our adventures too.

To start at the beginning...we managed not one but three mini-cruises between Good Friday and end of the first May Bank holiday! As a bonus the thursday evening before Good Friday saw a return to the good old days with the crews of Aspen, Mingarry, Eos and Blue drinking the health of the oversea's contingent of Southsea's E&F pontoon mafia aka the crews of Full Flight (now cruising Malysia) and Temptress around Temptress' saloon table. Son Will arrived to join the crowd late in the evening from London whilst Friday morning saw a few cases of "Southsea Head" along the pontoons. It was lovely to see everyone and be together again.

Cruise One - French Adventure

Temptress of Dwon , St Vaast

For our first cruise Temptress with Kevin as Skipper and Susie, friend Paul (skipper of Clarionet) and Will (son and sometime cabin boy from earlier cruises) as crew, headed across the Channel in the general direction of Deauville to the south and east of Portsmouth. Somewhere in the shipping lanes during the evening given the current rate of progress we realised there might not be sufficient rise of tide to get into Deauville or Trouville or most other ports in that general vicinity except L'Havre and we all agreed the latter was not on our itinery. Eventually after much discussion we all gave in to the Skipper and headed for his original choice of destination, St Vaast in Normandy, "around the corner from Cherbourg". We arrived soon after 1am with plenty of time before the harbour gate closed, though the First mates ability to calculate tides for secondary ports was rather rusty. In the morning I hustled everyone out of their bunks to find breakfast at the Easter market. There is a market in St Vaast every Saturday morning but the Easter one is a bit bigger and busier. We ate huge sausages in rolls though the requests for sauces got a bit lost in translation between the french staff and we each got a messy helping of ketchup. As usual with this lovely French village the crew spent their day eating and sleeping... a long long lunch with views over the quayside in a disorganised restuarant eventually yielded moules frites.

The crew loitering in sunny France

After a couple of beers in the sun at the bar on the other side of the marina and a late afternoon nap we fitted in a trip to Hotel Fuschias' wonderful dining experience. Highly recommended if you have never been but do book. We were amazed to get a table on Easter Saturday night, though Kevin was a bit disappointed not to be able to sit in the conservatory with its trompe d'oeil and the eponymous fuschias growing up the walls. The service is amazing, attentive but not in your face, the staff obviously love their jobs and the courses are from foodie heaven interspersed with lots of lovely extra bits.

The next day we left shortly after the gate opened again to head back across the channel. It was initially a good sail but then we settled down to radar watch and motoring in poor viz and little wind. Various members of the crew slept at various intervals which was hardly surprising considering the quantities of food we'd consumed. No organised watch for suc a short trip. The hours passed quickly and it didn't seem long before we were tying up on Southseas holding pontoon to land our crew who had to head off for work and an interview respectively on Tuesday. Paul provided Will with a lift to the station and Temptress headed across the harbour to pay her Harbour Dues.

Cruise Two - Westward Ho!

Sunset - Newton Creek, IoW

Wallop. Somewhere just short of the Hayling Island side a few boat lengths from the ferry pontoon the keel hit the putty at seven knots. Ouch my knee hurt from falling forward onto it on the side deck where I'd been bending down to pick up a mooring line. More than ouch I realised my thumb was leaking profusely all down one side having apparently had the wire that opens the jaws on the spinnaker pole embedded in one side of it briefly. Now I know why they call it a cheese-wire! Two neat slices above and below my thumb knuckle. Fortunately with the wind and tide opposing each other Temptress was happy just to sit across the north end of the harbour entrance whilst first aid was administered. Harbour dues extortedand a bright red sticker newly attached to the port quarter, Temptress headed down the Solent to Newton Creek to spend the night on a bouy. There is nothing so wonderful as taking the tide out of the Solent through the Needles Channel - it always brings back memories of holidays and races past whilst anticpating adventures to come. We were amazed to see looking north across the Shingles a new bit of England - dead on high water and there for all to see were a hundred yards or so of shingle standing several feet above sea level. Probably a sight you'd only see once in a lifetime.

Peaceful nights in Weymouth ?
Not with this things generators running!

The northerly wind was ideal for reaching across Christchurch Bay past St Albans Head and into Weymouth but bitterly bitterly cold for us Middle Eastern dwellers with our now thinned blood. Without consultation both crew donned full winter thermals, mid-layer salopettes lined with fleece, fleece jackets, hats, boots and oilies. The first mate found a scarf and gloves too and used every excuse to escape down below to the warmth of the galley to try out the new toy Mr D's Thermal Cooker or to the nav table. Listening to the VHF we realised that being a midweek in April Lulworth range was active to headed south of the whole area partly to avoid it and partly because it was a faster course to sail.

The range officer and the safety boats conversations about other boats approaching the area from either side kept us amused for sometime but proved useful when we realised that we could cut the corner a bit, head up more north-westerly and shorten our voyage to Weymouth. After a fantastic cobweb removing sail we arrived in Weymouth mid afternoon with time to do a spot of provisioning as well as invest in a new fender to replace the last of the big round ones from our old boat Mustigo (we actually require two fenders but the cost of one put us off a second). If it lasts as long as its predecessor the annual cost will be under a fiver but the initial "investment" was a bit of a shock. The camaraderie amongst the rafted boats on the quayside was all always in this harbour, wonderful and our thermally cooked lamb supper lovely. The following morning at 6am we were woken politely as arranged by the big converted fishing boat inside us who wanted to catch the tide to Dartmouth. The rafts ahead and behind were also being broken apart so it was easy once the two boats outside of us had let go, to cast off and do a circle until they'd gone. Then we reformed our raft with Temptress alongside the pontoon.

As we were wide awake in the chilly morning air it seemed stupid to waste a lovely morning by returning to our bunk so by 11am we'd cycled the ten miles to Abbotsbury in time for the noon feeding of the swans. The cycle nearly killed us so unfit we have become but it was well worth the effort to see the hundreds of swans with many many pairs sitting on nests all around the place. The swannery has been there for hundreds of years, originally to provide food for the monks in the near by abbey, though sawn meat is a bit of acquired taste apparently tough, stringy and fishy tasting. This swan heaven with three meals a day and nests provided sits at the top end of Chesil Bank on the shores of the Fleet, the lagoon formed on the landward side of the bank. At this end the Fleet is virtually freshwater, what swans require for drinking, further down it turns brackish and there eel grass grows on the bottom, a delicacy for the swans. These swans belong to Abbotsbury not the Queen nor one of the London Guilds, the latter own most of the Thames swans, the former all the rest. The swans are free to fly and are tagged, visiting swans get a tag too to indicate that they have visited rather than ownership. Shortly after our visit the first cygnets fo the season arrived, a couple of weeks ahead of the usual schedule, probably because of the unseasonably warm weather the UK had had before our arrival.

A couple of hours later and our stomaches were reminding us of lunch time so we headed back up the hill to the village pub. Across the road was a bus stop... we have folding bikes so it tempted us with an easier trip home to Weymouth. Checking the times there was a bus due about now, 13:15, with the next in two hours time...two hours for lunch? Nope, we choose to get the bus and sort out food at our destination. A heavily tattoed scruffy man in his forties sat on the bus-stop bench with a large Alsatian at his side. The dog came over for a scratch round the ears and we soon struck up conversation. "Bus due soon?", "Yes mate but its always late by the time it gets here", "Nice dog", "Yes mate she likes taking the bus to the pub". It soon transpired the guy didn't drink in his local in the next village, no reason given. Man and dog used to the bus to frequent the village hosterlies between Weymouth and Dorchester, a different one each lunchtime through the week, the timetable providing a convenient amount of drinking time. On the bus the two elderly ladies heading into Weymouth for a spot of shopping started up a lively conversation with us and anyone else who'd join them on the merits of having folding bikes and more... I couldn't quite picture them actually riding a bike at their age around the Dorset hills though!

Back in Weymouth we cycled along the seafront and found a tatty looking coffee house (thats what the sign said) with people sitting out front, Hamiltons. It was out of the wind, in the sun and the lunch menu attracted us. A large portion of upmarket fish,chips and mushy peas for the Skipper and a wonderful dressed crab with salad for me accompanied by a coke and a huge glass of Scilian white wine respectively. Peeling paint and wobbly chairs belied the wine bar's amazing food. A slight, Italian mama served us, her son issuing instructions from inside. Every B&B along the front had patriotic bunting stretching from their railings to the upper floors and across the road glimpses of the beach could be caught between the parked cars. What we love about Weymouth, after it's lovely harbour is that it remains a traditional English seaside resort. Lets hope the Olympics don't transform it too much as I love its slightly run down scruffy, cheerful streets.

Too soon it was time to head back east to collect our passengers for the third and final mini-cruise. The wind had turned more easterly and was blowing hard. With the first reef in and a scrap of headsail (we are glad our well cut genoa still sets well when furled) we set off for Worbarrow Bay. Normally this amazing location shletered in most winds is closed to the public as it is deep within the Lulworth gunnery range but a comment by the range officers had left us wondering whether the might be no firing on the thursday before the Royal Wedding holiday. In Weymouth Harbour Office the list was out of date and the staff promised to find out, which they did, coming down to the boat on Wednesday evenig as they left for the day to tell us they had had a call that the range was open (ie no firing and open to the public) from late on Wednesday until Monday morning. The east end of the bay is a lovely spot surrounded by colourful cliffs a steep shingle beach and aa flatish bit of beach to land a dinghy on.

Telephone box, Tynham

In warm sunshine we made the short walk up to the deserted village of Tynham evacuted by the army in 1943 its residents never allowed to return since. The was no one else there except the birds so it was an eery place frozen at a point in time when national interest came above people's lives and well being. We could hear a woodpecker tap tapping somewhere. The telephone box, church and school room remain intact but the mostly tiny cottages are just four walls. It has never seen post war development and having been small with a declining population in the forties, had hardly changed since the end of the Victorian era. Sad but fascinating.

From Worbarrow we beat then motored against a vague easterly back into the Solent via the Needles again to take our usual place against the wall in a busy bank holiday Yarmouth. The partying was in full swing with a fair on the green and twenty-somethings dressed as memmbers of the royal wedding party clambering out of ribs and heading into town somewhere. After a walk along the foreshore to Victoria fort and supper onboard we retreated to the yacht club for a few bevies. We propped up the bar with a bunch of old salts (you know the types who prop up yacht club bars the world over) who were more than acquainted with Paul's boat Clarionet and her racing pedigree having competed against her when they were younger. It had rained whilst we were inside and was blowing a bit as we walked back through Yarmouth's narrow streets. Not quite certain how we made it back onto Temptress who by now had two UKSA forty-odd footers outside of her. In this blowy-off berth the result was a six foot gap between boat and wall with the deck several feet down and no ladder conveniently placed. We obviously managed the transition without incident as I woke up safe and sound in my bunk the next morning!

View over Yarmouth harbour from the bridge

Late morning we unfurled a smidgeon of gennie and tucked in the first reef to beat up the Solent to Southsea, thankful that the easterly wind was warmer than the polar blasts we'd had earlier in the week. It became an imformal race against one of the UKSA boats that had been alongside us, a SO 45. We crossed tacks several times on our path back and forth eastwards until Kevin & I agreed that lunch at anchor in the lee of the Isle of Wight would be more than pleasant. That way we'd also have the tide with us for the afternoon and anyway we didn't want to arrive in Southsea at low water. After a spot of homemade asparagus rissotto we weighed anchor and continued east. Round the "bend" in the Solent at Cowes the wind freed us off a little which helped. Then, off Southsea beach, we furled away the genoa before shaking out the reef so the main could folded neatly onto the boom whilst we had searoom. The weather forecast for the weekend was gloomy with gales mentioned, with passengers on board it would be easier to handle just the gennie so the main was put away until our summer holiday. A surfeit of sail ties held everything in place - yellow, pale blue and red ends gaily fluttering in the breeze, the sail cover would go on later. Then there was a small incident when the helm ie me failed to keep to the wrong side of the channel (yes I know I've taken the boat up there many times before and I know the deep water is at the red pole side, I have no defence except perhaps day dreaming). We ran firmly aground just after the green and red poles where the big dog leg is... with help from the Skipper windiing the wheel back and forth and lots of engine revs Temptress became a dredger until with a slight rise fo the tide eventually the big torpedo shaped bulb on the keel ploughed us back into deeper water - oops sorry skipper, I'll try to remember next time!

As always the Southsea Marina staff uncomplainingly cleared a space big enough for Temptress after we'd called to announce our imminent though eventually slightly delayed arrival. They then provided a welcome hand to help spring her into the berth against the strong winds. Supper was a tasty Stella Stew with dumplings and new potatoes from the thermal cooker.

Cruise Three - Cowes And Back

The Royalist entering Cowes

Kevin's parents were expected not before 10am the next day so I was somewhat surprised shortly after 8am the following morning to emerge from the toilets and find my father-in-law wandering around. By ten everything was stowed, our new crew installed in the cockpit warmly wrapped up and Temptress made her way back down the marina channel for the third time in eight days. It was a quick downwind sail under a small scrap of jib to Cowes with helpings of cup-a-soups to keep the cockles warm enroute.

We had selected the Yacht Haven as a suitable mooring crossing our fingers that we would get an alongside berth to avoid too much clambering up and down for the oldies. They responded by giving us probably the most awkward berth in the marina. The cross berth in the north basin could only be entered by turning sideways to all the traffic in Medina and reversing in. Having waited for the car ferry to depart Kevin had to run the gauntlet of several large yachts, ribs and other assorted craft heading either up or down the Medina once I had all the fenders and lines sorted. Once through the North Basin entrance things settled down and we were gently blown into the allocated space, the cockpit providing a pleasant, sunny lee for lunch.

The the four of us headed into the high street for a spot of wallet emptying in a swindlery. The main halyard's captive shackle had bent sometime the previous day and now would not close, a quick rummage through our deck spares box had shown us to be woefully short of shackles of any kind. The list was quite long; shackles, replacement sail rollers for the guard wires, shroud covers/rollers and more. The best thing about boat shopping is that you have to visit so many chandleries to acquire everything on your list so we found a few things not necessarily on the list and caught up with acquaintances on the way!

I also managed a quick dive into the Sebago shop and am now the proud owner of a pair of red siling "slippers" - that's not their real name but these soft sailing shoes really feel as comfortable as slippers even when soaking wet, dry quickly and cling tight to a slopping deck thanks to their octopus like suckers. Sir Frances Chichester sailed round the world in his carpet slippers and I've sailed everywhere in my once pale blue and white ones for the last six years unless its really cold when I tuck into my Dubarries. My old pair still have some life left in them but are gradually succumbing to the effects of salt water with bits of the lacing mechanism now tied together and the soles starting to part company from the uppers. My smart new pair will see me nicely turned out on the newly fettled Clarionet for the Channel Classics in June!

Portsmouth skyline

A couple of beers with our friends at Cowes Corinthian partly watching the footie, partly chatting was followed by all but me retiring for a snooze! Later supper at Mojac's was wonderful although there was an awkward moment when Noel realised his chicken dish was not what he thought it was and a bit over sauced for his liking. Still the scrummy puddings made up for that. The next morning we needed an early start to catch the tides for Southsea, our plane the following day, Tuesday could not be missed. The weather forecasters had got it right it was blowing fives or sixes, gusting sevens or more all from the East. Everyone donned lifejackets and oilies for the trip. Getting out of the north basin cross berth just by the entrance was an interesting problem Kevin & I had pondered the day before but was actually easier than we'd feared. I think the folk on the race boat berthed across our stern were possibly a bit worried when the Skipper reversed onto our spring to turn the bow through the wind but our projecting sugar scoop stern was well clear of their topsides. I scrambled back to relase the stern spring and we headed out into the melee that is the Medina when everyone is leaving. It was windy and after a couple of long tacks across to the North Island and back we made little headway against the rapidly turning tide, plus the passengers were finding life at an extreme angle a bit tedious so Temptress returned to the slight shelter offered by north shore and motored homeward.

Off Southsea beach we indulged in a bit more sail handling this time it was judged the only safe place to take the genoa down in the strong easterlies as it would be on the beam in our berth. George the autopilot was left in charge of sailing whilst I handled the halyard and Kevin went forward to wrestle the acres of cloth. It all got a bit wet when a gust blew the bow off head to wind and part of the sail made a bid for freedom but between the pair of us we recovered it aboard and tied it down. A quick fill up with diesel on the way into the marina and we were back in our home berth in time for lunch. Eos and Aspen were still there, the weather delaying to their plans to sail across the Channel south to Brittany's warmer climes for a couple of months or so. (Premier Marina's offer their berth holders a sabbatical repaid through a reduction in the following years mooring fees which means you effectively save some money by taking a break from your home port for a month or more up to three months I think.)

We packed up piles of dirty towels, bedding and clothes. There was a small bag of clean stuff along with assorted other things to take back to DXB. Our remaining perishable food was handed to Gina of Aspen to help feed the marooned crews during their wait for more favourable winds and around 5:30pm we were finally about to depart when Kevin remembered he needed to empty the bilge.

When Temptress was launched the stern gland seal was not properly formed and a small aount of water had found its way into the boat and into the engine bay. We'd hoped it would work its way forward to the bilge pump but hope is just that... the scuppers between the various sections of bilge were blocked with hair, dust and crumbs from the cabin sole so the water had remained all week swilling round. Two people and one stirrup pump applied themsleves to the task and Temptress now has a fairly well washed, dry bilge again.

The pump filter had to be unblocked again as most of the rubbish ended up there. This involves emptying a hanging locker containing a dozen or so self-inflating life jackets, grab bag, high intensity safety light, two old foam type life jackets (for sitting on in the liferaft should we ever come to that situation as they apparently keep your bottom warmer or just for kids/adults to wear for fun jumping into the water) and the electric drill box. Lift up the locker base and hey presto two bilge pumps, one manual and one electric plus the pressure cooker in the locker below... you can't reach the filter via the lower locker by removing the pressure cooker, that would be just too simple on a boat! Shortly after six the car was packed and we were on the road to Ham. The end of three delightful mini-cruises and very sad that it was time to head back to DXB even if the weather would be welcomingly warmer.

Weekend Wandering the Desert

2011-04-10T12:06:00.000+03:00

A beach but the tide is out

Before it gets too hot we wanted to take Jeanie Jeep on a desert camping expedition. Friday dawned windy but undetered we drove down the E11 towards Abu Dhabi (AD) and beyond with Jeanie's sand-wake streaming out behind us. Somewhere near Tarif to the west of AD we realised we could indulge in a spot of Geocaching to liven up our morning's meandering (for those uninitiated in this slightly crazy nerdie/techie sport click here). We headed off the highway for Al Mirfa a little fishing port west of AD. Having failed dismally through the illegibility of the clue we cheered up with the realisation that there were more caches not far away to seek out. Previously with the help of a friend we had uploaded the coordinates of most of caches in the UAE to our GPS so instrument in hand we headed off for the Salt Mine further west along the coast.

Jeanie Jeep's wake captured in the rearview mirror

Things can change a lot here in quite short time frames so we suspect that the Salt Mine cache is now submerged under a bund. But whilst looking at the GPS, our copy of the UAE Offroad Handbook and a very tatty road map we did finally decide on our weekend destination - to head south towards Liwa.

The Empty Quarter or Rub al Khali, is not called so lightly and even modern life has made little impact on this part of the world - miles and miles of sand with an occasional road or line of pylons and the odd oil well head. This is the world's largest sand desert stretching across several countries. For the most part this corner of the UAE is truely "empty" with little traffic and a few camels. The camels struck us as different somehow, then we realised their hides were so dark as to be almost black not "camel" - do you get different breeds like you get breeds of cows or sheep? No idea.

Camping Emirati style

After driving for much of the day with one more stop to hunt fruitlessly for a roadside geocache we reached the great Liwa Oasis and promptly turned right, away from it, heading for Arada to the west. Sucess at last! We logged a find of the "Desert Rally Special Stage Three" cache. This was especially nice as it is one deposited by our lovely friends Ged and Leslie (who'd got us hooked on this activity) and had been reported as being in disrepair. We can report it was safe and sound, with a good bit of duck tape holding the box together.

The silvery "lake" at the foot of the dunes is Sabkha

Retracing our steps we finally entered the western end of the Oasis, a series of valleys in the sand that have sufficient water to turn them into green marvels growing much of the local vegetables we buy. Each valley has its own little community with the central Oasis town of Meziera'a having shops and important offices like the municipality and the police etc. A few miles or rather kilometers as that is the measurement used here, just short of Meziera'a, in Qatuf we turned south again onto the Moreeb road. Over the sand hills, down past the industrial area and up into the desert. The scenery is spectacular, undisturbed reddish sand - the boy racers from AD and Dubai with their 4x4s ands quad bikes don't often make it here - and silvery grey deep valleys where the sabkha (Arabic for salt flat) is revealed. The latter is where the water table lies close to the surface and the moisture is drawn up by capillary action only to evaporate in the scorching heat leaving deposits of salts and gypsum (is gypsum a salt...), hence the colour. Drive on it at your own risk as the surface is easily broken and a vehicle can quickly find itself deep in the underlying quagmire and the end will be grisely.

Camping just off the road

We found a suitable flattish area of sand for our camp not too far from the road as being lazy we didn't want to deflate the tyres and being only one car it's not sensible to venture too far onto the sand anyway. It was a great spot and once the desert safaris, the camel herder on his quad bike and the last of the workers buses (from where?) had driven north towards Liwa we were alone, just us, a BBQ supper and the stars. If you think the desert is truely deserted then think again. Lots of plants, small lizards, a few snakes, scorpions, some flies and the odd gazelle live out in the grueling heat though there were few trees here unlike the landscape around Dubai. Once the sun goes down the sand surface rapidly cools and we found ourselves shuffling our feet down under the surface to warm them!

A night time visitor left tracks around Jeanie Jeep's tyres

03:30am, dark, even the moon has gone and we are woken by the noise of a heavy engine - raising our heads and slightly worried for our safety as it sounded very very close (could we be mown down in the dark?) we spotted a lowloader toiling up the hill on the road towards the oasis! In the morning unusually we weren't woken by sunrise and it was almost seven when Kevin made our respective morning mugs of coffee and tea using water from the thermos filled the night before - we practise a very civilised form of camping. During the night we'd had several visitors, one small lizard had made a through inspection of our bages lying in the the front part of our tent before making his way under the sleeping section. We discovered him, sand coloured but almost translucent when striking the tent after beakfast! He was so desparate for shelter from the by now scorching sun that he kept climbing into the folds of fabric as we made ready to pack the tent away. Eventually Kevin scooped the hapless lizard up and took him for a walk to some nearby low succulents.

At the foot of Moreeb Hill (aka Scary Mountain)

At the end of the road was Moreeb (or Mureb*) Hill at 210 metres top to bottom is probably the tallest dune in the UAE, its peak is around 300 metres measured from sea level. The long steep side rising up at an angle of around 50 degrees makes it an ideal location for a uniquely Arab sport - drag hill climbing. At the base are the makings of a large show ground purely there to support national and international events that are regularly held here. On a Saturday morning in April the only other person present was a gardener patiently driving a tractor mower around a huge expanse of grass. We drove through an open gate to the very foot of the dune and looked up in awe. Too lazy again to deflate the tyres and so make a climb attempt ourselves (we should invest in a new compressor that will inflate them faster than 20 mins per wheel) Jeanie Jeep and the skipper posed for a photo, another cache bagged.

Wind swept sand looks like waves

Greenhouses, Liwa Oasis

Jeanie Jeep somewhere enroute to Al Ain

The only other route out of the Moreeb area is across the restricted area of the oil and gas fields, so after a quick recce from the top of the hill opposite Moreeb, we retraced our steps once more to the main road through the Oasis. A brief pit stop at the shops in Mezaira'a enabled us to stock up on bottled water then we headed east towards Hamin. The Off Road Guide mentioned a track to Al Ain which is a major city some 200 kilometres away - we fancied taking it as our main morning activity! It is I hasten to add, not unsurfaced all the way, over recent years oil and gas exploration have gradually extended the tamac of the E95 down from Al Ain following the route of the ancient track so we hoped to link up with it long before we reached a police post positioned in Umm Azzimul close to the point where the UAE borders with both Saudi and Oman meet. It was a long and interesting morning that shall remain slightly veiled, suffice to say we missed somewhere a left turn and found ourselves busy with GPS and map trying to get our bearings just a few metres from Saudi. I will mention though that there is a handy stretch of tarmac along a lengthy unscalable fence watched over by camera towers and that the guy driving a water bowser in army camoflage gave us a cheery wave when he passed! According to both GPS chart and our map we were somewhere in the desert probably not in Saudi. Eventually we came across our Al Ain track again. This time busy with construction lorries but handily a strip of fine quality blacktop has been laid parallel with it, an as yet unopened extension of the E95. It was easy to get onto and relieved that as yet we hadn't been arrested we sped northwards even managing not to be stopped at the road block by the police post.

A new meaning to the term "Road Hogs"

The one problem with new roads here is that someone eventually wants to widen them. By the time we reached the towns 100k or so south of Al Ain our route had become a major highway with little traffic except ourselves. We were temporarily held up in one village by two lorry drivers who occupied both lanes whilst they shouted friendly greetings at each other which then developed into a lengthy conversation as we all traversed the vicious sleeping policemen laid to slow down traffic through an area built up on both sides of the road. The pale camel coloured camel in the back of the truck regarded us inquisitively, we and the water bowser to his left were probably the only other vehicles he'd seen since being loaded onto the truck. On our route north the "camel fences" designed to keep the eponymous animal from being harmed by speeding vehicles were, on our right hand side almost one with the UAE/Oman border fence. Just a sliver of culivated land tracked between the road and the border on the UAE side all the way to Al Ain.

After a roadside lunch amongst the irrigated date palm lined fields, we eventually spotted the rocky heights of Jebel Hafeet rising up through the murky dust ahead of us. This outcrop of rock when approached from the south looks like a sleeping dragon sprawled across the flat desert. The mountains of Oman are some distance away and this sole pinky grey fold in the Earth's crust has a mystical appearance rising up as it does to over 1000 metres almost straight from the ground.

From just south of Al Ain we picked our way via older roads across the flat lands of the AD Emirate towards home. By now we can pick out the differences in the desert landscape - it's not all sand and each Emirate has different features. Soon the more rolling sands of Dubai were up on us as was the traffic on the truck road (lorries can't overtake so these giants form lengthy "trains" transporting all manner of goods across the GCC). We found these towering trucks were well mannered and drove mostly in the hard shoulder of the two lane road enabling pickups and cars to pass through the corridor between the opposing lines of traffic. Gaps left between the groups of lorries formed refuges for when there were oncoming cars and everyone seemed to be happy, waving thank-you's for pulling over. The first garage we tried for fuel had a queue of tens of lorries but only stocked diesel and the second had such a long queue reaching far back down the road that we felt it rude to push in so we drove past the queue into the garage checking to see if there were sepearate pumps for cars, there weren't so we headed back onto the road again. In this oil rich nation its never far to the next pump as long as you are on a highway so Jeanie Jeep was topped up shortly after reaching home territory whilst we treated ourselves to an ice cream each (on a stick, in a wrapper, in a sturdy box - overkill I'd say).

We covered over a 1,000k in two days (petrol is cheap here fortunately), done a bit of light walking whilst hunting down some geocaches, had fun camping on the warm sand and seen some amazing sights - all in all a good wander!

____________________

* Place names can cause a bit of a navigational headache as Arabic is foremost a spoken language so any transliteration into English can result in multiple spellings of the same name, even on sucessive signposts to the same town! My tip is to say it aloud and then check to see if the signpost or map label sounds similar when you say that. If it does it is probably the same place! However I might be wrong; the settlements in the Liwa Oasis appeared along our route in a different order to that indicated by the GPS or our UAE map so be wary when looking for a place or a street here.

Of Beds and Bedding

2011-03-27T10:41:00.000+03:00


New Sofa Bed

I love crawling in between crisp clean sheets in a freshly made bed, nothing beats that initial feeling of cool and smooth cotton aginst your skin. And I love a smartly made bed -so satisfying to quickly pull or shake a pile of bedclothes straight, transforming a room from a mess to welcome. However I was beginning to dispair that even newly changed our current bed looked unloved, let me explain why:

Having slept in many hotels over the years you become aware that beds come in a variety of shapes and sizes generally referred to as standard, king, superking and queen by all. In the UK we have a set of accepted dimensions for these which makes purchasing beds and linens simple. The only indication that things might be different elsewhere in the world is the hint you get if you happen to buy a bed or bedding from IKEA.

Brands from all over the world are sold in the Middle East and this can result in mayhem in the bedding department. Unaware of what was to come we originally shipped a selection of our existing bed linen from the UK - basically a couple of sets of kingsize duvet covers & fitted sheets together with a selection of pillow cases - things I thought would cover most beds we might encounter in furnished apartments. Wrong!

In Bahrain our semi-serviced apartment included one set of bedding for each of the two beds - the master bedroom boasted a "superking" mattress of enormous dimensions and the spare room a king sized bed so the supplied bedding wasn't interchangable. Then there were only two pillows per bed so we purchased four rather overstuffed locally made pillows in the hypermarket. They only just fit in a standard housewife pillow case and although they look great on the bed, are just too plump to have two beneath your head and too soft to comfortably lean against for reading! Eventually a luxurious set of Egyptian cotton superking sized sheets, pillow cases & duvet cover were acquired in a sale as getting those provided washed and dried in a single day became too much of an effort, up and down to the laundry in the mezzanine eight floors below (the machine in the kitchen being too small to take the bottom sheet let alone a duvet cover). Life in the bedding department was perfect!

Then we moved to Dubai. The bedstead in the master bedroom is beautiful with its tall dark wooden headboard and a thick luxury sprung mattress. The latter is almost square at 180cm wide by 200 tall but is a challenging 30-something cm thick - once again we were down to one sheet that fitted meaning a rush to get bedding washed and dry. No duvet was supplied so one of our first purchases on a trip to Carrefour was a kingsized duvet, being naive I didn't bother to check the sizes after all it was French wasn't it? The duvet proved to be longer in one dimension and shorter in the other than our UK covers which are actually square! Ah well it had enough duvet to cover us but looked rather odd stuffed in any of our covers, especially the superking where it laid flat but left several feet of fabric unfilled.

With the purchase of a sofa bed a week or two ago so our guests can have somewhere to sleep I resolved to try to sort things out. Mattresses, duvets, sheets and covers were all measured and off I set clutching my precious list of sizes. Ignoring IKEA completely my first stop was the supermarkets - cheap polycotton sheets a plenty but nothing to fit a very thick mattress. No duvets, only ready covered quilts so thick that even in the darkest UK winter night they'd be too warm, protection perhaps against the chills of the aircon? Then onto the homewares stores. In the process I discovered that many products simply stated the generic categories king, queen etc but no sizes and those that did had little or no logic between measurements and category. Products sold here come from all over the world and despite most being made in China are made for markets like the USA, Australia and elsewhere as well as for the UK so side by side on the shelf you can find two items both labelled "King" but very different sizes.

Next stop a shop selling some well known UK bedding brands like Fogarty. Sucess a 4.5 tog quilt in the right dimensions, lovely soft pillows in a choice of firmess and fitted sheets galore - all at a price. The credit card machine wasn't working and I hadn't sufficient cash so left my potential purchases in search of an ATM. On the way I finally cracked the problem - Debenhams home department! Wow a wall of UK kingsized duvets in a choice of togs and fillings, mounds of lovely soft pillows and fitted sheets with all three dimensions listed on the packet. Plus to cap it all, buy three items and the cheapest was free so compensating for the marked up UK prices. One kingsized 4.5 tog duvet, a packet of two super soft anti-allergenic pillows and a duck egg blue fitted sheet - no more over stuffed pillows or painful necks, no more extra yards of cotton draping lifelessly over the side of the bed, our newly made bed looks gorgeous.

PS: For the protection of my sanity I only iron pillow cases :-)

Being Sponsored...

2011-03-20T13:03:00.001+03:00

This morning passport in hand I accompanied Kevin on one more step towards settling down to normal life in Dubai, getting me a cash card for our bank account. Only its not quite as simple as all that. I am here because my husband sponsors me to be here. Images of slavery, servitude, apprenticeship or to use a good old English phrase "goods and chattels" come to mind. So we arrive at the branch of a well known four lettered bank down at Gate 2 for the port of Jebel Ali, a short drive from home (it's located there as its in the free zone and therefore I think, not subject to quite the same legal requirements as an Emirati bank).

This being Dubai, it is not going to be a bank appointment quite like any other I've experienced. Having checked in at reception, a middle aged Indian tea-boy offers us coffee and we settle down in their comfy tub chairs with our tiny paper cups and today's Gulf News, a copy apiece. After twenty minutes or so a smiling young lady in abaya and headscarf greets us and leads us to her office. Kevin explains his two pieces of business and she talks to him a in the manner of a doctor conversing with the relatives of a sick patient - I'm present but can not be involved. I definitely feel like a second-class citizen and it is not a good sensation. A matter simple form filling and signing changes the credit card payments to 100% each month, Kevin doesn't even have to complete all of the fields in the form as they "have the details on record sir", just sign and date with the relevant box ticked.

I cannot though it transpires, have a cash card for Kevin's current account nor can that account become a joint one. In order to sort this conundrum out a new joint account must be opened that is subservient to his current account. Her face showed her thoughts when Kevin turned to me and said "no worries you can access the internet banking so can transfer money to it easily anyway". The form for opening a joint account is proffered for him to complete "just your wife's details sir". She is even more dismayed when he pushes it along the desk for me to complete with the excuse that my handwriting is better than his! I duely start to work my way through the multi-paged form sticking to the second account holder column. No employer? In that case I am a "house wife" as per my residency, the rebel in me was tempted to write "D. Eng. (rtd)" (if you don't know what this means you are probably male!).

It is permitted to supply my own mobile phone number and physical address as well as Dell's PO Box. I tick the box for a cash card then both of us sign and date the form. In a rare acknowledgement of my presence in Dubai the company the handles the distribution of the cards will apparently call me to arrange delivery at some unspecified point in the future. And, it appears that when I use said card both Kevin and I will get an SMS detailing the transaction which I suppose is a step forward on our credit card that only informs Kevin when I use it!

Positive Thinking

2011-03-09T11:31:00.002+03:00

It's often said by ex-pats especially those of UK origin but many others too, that one of the bonuses of life abroad is that everyone is much more positive about life in general. Recently I read an upbeat discussion of "Things you CAN do [inDubai] that you can't do at home". I found it fascinating reading giving an insight into both life here and the contributors culture at "home" and thought you'd enjoy this summary:

The Weather

Sit with the patio doors wide open on a March evening!
Having my car filled for me, I hate having to get out when I’m back in UK freezing wet windy
Spend time in the pool on Christmas morning and then barbecue in the afternoon without worrying about the weather (within reason).
Swim outside and sunbathe in March (well did on Friday - not today!!)
I can wear T-shirts all year around

Culture

Eat wherever I want without checking if it's halal or not...
Go to a water theme park/beach in a bathing suit (ladies only days)..
Leave my car running while I jump out and withdraw cash or whatever...
Leave valuable things in the car without worrying that the window will get smashed and my things will get stolen.
Being called Ma'am and not "luv", "duck" or any other endearment by people you don't know
I can say hello to anyone on the street without them looking at me like I am a weirdo.......
Being able to stay home and enjoy quality time with my children....amazing
Afford a big villa when it is an impossibility in my home country.....just wonderful.
Have time to coffee with friends and for that matter sit and write to this forum or read a book....
Develop new friendships with pp from so many nationalities....just great.
Drive nice cars.....wow...
Travel regularly to amazing places
Take nice holidays to around Middle East, Europe or Asia...or Africa...all within reach and affordable and as most of us ladies don’t work giving us time to plan and enjoy...
Eating out...variety is amazing...quality depends on where you are comparing with....
So many fun activities for kids....could never dream of this back home...
Safety...though my home is safe....how many places are really safe in this world? Can we take a train at 11pm..dare not do this in most major cities...
Shopping shopping shopping...more variety here..
I can free camp on spectacular beaches and desertscapes
I can wear shorts and jandals (flip-flops) to 5* hotels for lunch
I can have just about any kind of food my little heart desires, delivered.
I love studying with people who come from 100 + different countries and unlike UK and USA, they haven't all assimilated so I still get to observe and enjoy their quirky cultural customs
When we lived in Abu Dhabi, I loved that there were women only sections in cafe's etc.
Go to a Ladies queue (eg at government offices) and get served over the long queues of men!
Been on the metro 3 times in the last week and been offered a seat twice.
Being able to take my son into so many restaurants and feeling comfortable about it, it's so child friendly here, not like back home.
Communicate with 5-6 nationalities in my office during only one working day! Awesome!
Be greeted with a hello wherever you go
I can have early breakfast at the restaurant
I can walk only 10 meters away from Sheikh Mo (the ruler of Dubai)
Go for a coffee with your hubby on a whim at 9pm because you have full time live in help who will listen to the baby monitor for you!
People usually always give their seat to a lady who is standing on the bus
Never lived somewhere where I didn't need a car before so little things like walking to the mall, walking along the Creek at night etc are great.
I love bargaining so Karama and the Souqs are fun coming from a country with fixed prices.
Being able to take a taxi without thinking it will cost an arm and a leg!
Ladies sections on buses, women and children section on train, ladies taxis...
Smiling my way to being sorted out first (the bank, the shop, the lift)
Love the fact that most people here are cheerful most of the time whereas in Blighty everyone seems to have something to moan about.

Service And Shopping

Have my supermarket shop packed for me (and the trolley contents loaded onto the belt too) caused a few problems the first time I returned to the UK – blush
Have the car washed everyday by the cheerful man in our car park
Wonder why there are no replacement electric toothbrush heads for sale again!
Walk out of my front door without being confronted by an array of outsize wheelie bins provided for me to sort my own rubbish and cart to the end of the path on various days during the month - I don't miss clogging up my brain with rubbish collection schedules!
Park for free in the shopping malls.
Pay for stuff with hubby’s bank card and vice versa without anyone questioning it... we both get called maaaaamsiiirrrr anyway so why should it matter if the card I'm paying with says Mr xxx?!
Afford someone to clean the house on a regular basis
Can afford a maid...or two if we want...a driver...a gardener....luxury....
Get immediate medical attention without waiting months or years in our 'free' system at home
Fill up the car with petrol without having to worry about taking out a mortgage to do so!
The fact that you can leave your supermarket trolley anywhere in the car park and nobody bats an eyelid!!
Get fruit, veg and other food from all over the world in the supermarkets (all year round).
I love the fresh mint and lemon drinks.
Go to a mall late at night and shop past 21:00.
Have groceries, fruits and veggies delivered for free!
Call the grocery and getting the delivery 20 minutes later (free!)
Order from the grocery and pay a month later
Dial out for anything and everything and get it delivered.
Not clearing up after myself in a food court. It irks me NOT to do it (I still tidy and gather everything neatly on the tray to be disposed of) but I don't do it 'cause it will take some wee man's job away if I do. If you did that in Canada - well, I don't know what would happen, 'cause you just wouldn't!
Go to Karama/Satwa/Bur Dubai and have a slap up meal which costs 30 AED (6gbp)!
I can get my car washed here when it is super dirty for only 25dhs, I don't think anyone would get out of bed in Australia for that would they??
Get your dry cleaning / ironing collected / delivered…for crazy cheap prices!

Things That Make You Wonder

Sit in the car with the car running while someone fills the gas tank (oops you should actually turn it off but many don't)
Stop in your car, beep your horn and the grocery store will bring stuff out to you.
Push in to traffic queues etc by doing the hand gesture thingy that says please let me in/give me time etc..
Get out of traffic tickets by batting your eyelashes and asking them not to give you a ticket as you have too many already
Stopping for shwarmas and bipping your horn so people come to the car to take order
Let your kids ride in the car like they are animals or even sit on your knee and help you drive!!!!! I'd love to be a traffic cop here.......
Drive like a manic and cut people up (not that I do!) without getting punched! Lol!

And Finally (one habit I’ve mentioned before but I’m obviously not the only victim):

Be trailed in a store like a potential shop lifter;

I usually ask them why they're following me. Makes me cross (maybe I look like a crim? Lol!)
Much more fun to quietly give them something to do; put the coathangers back on the rack facing the opposite way etc.....once slowly turned a whole row of camels to face the shop wall and watched the poor assistant itching for me to move so she could rearrange them! Shadowing brings out the worst in me...

For more on this and topics like 'where can I buy....', 'help maid problems...' and 'I'm pregnant now what' (the latter is a BIG topic here as you can lose your job and if not married you will be deported) dip into the wealth of advice and views that is the Expat Woman forum.

Driving

2011-03-02T16:13:00.000+03:00

Kevin & Asif our EDI Desert Driving Instructor

Having done the calculations, purchasing a car becomes cheaper than a renting one within about a year so we've bought a three year old Wrangler Jeep with some seventy thousand kilometres on the clock. The transaction was fairly simple and fortunately the guy at the showroom in the Automarket was happy to drive Kevin around in our new vehicle to obtain a registration plate, insurance certificate, MOT and Salik tag. Kevin having previously signed up for insurance online. The Salik tag is for the tolls on Sheik Zayed Road, the main artery through Dubai. We avoid driving on it as each time you pass under a gate it costs 5 AED (about £1) and in the short time since arriving late December we'd averaged about £40 per month in tolls according to the analysis and bill provided by the car hire company. This is partly because we live near one of the over head toll gates and it lies between us and the supermarket! Now we are a little more canny and drive the back roads to Mall of the Emirates or anywhere else we go regularly.

Kevin got well and truely stuck

We've both purchased Emirati driving licences (mandatory if you have a residents visa) and also spent a saturday in the desert learning how to drive in the sand and more importantly how to get ou if you are stuck so now we feel set to go camping in some of the more remote parts of the Arabian Peninsula. Jeanie Jeep (our lovely purpley-charcoal coloured Wrangler Sahara with its powerful 3.5 litre engine) has proved great fun too. We had a little run down to Abu Dhabi last Friday (petrol is cheap and it is about an hour drive) and explored along the creeks north of the city. I'd read about life there in the 70's in the wonderful book Mother Without A Mask (highly recommended for its insights into Arabic life) so it was fascinating to see the area with its clear water, islands and mangroves albeit that there are now many waterside villas. Lots of people were out enjoying the sandy banks and the water; European, Asian and local familes indulging in their common passions for fishing, paddling and BBQ'ing and cars. There were people being ferried across to the islands on what looked like floating pontoons barely big enough for a large 4x4. Also alongside the water were several walled Ladies Swimming Pools presumably so local ladies can bathe in the creeks away from prying eyes.

Rest Stop: Jeanie Jeep, Kevin & Dave

Then, on Saturday, together with a former UK colleague of Kevin's, Dave D who lives here too, we headed for the hills. Or rather a ghaf forest then the rocky mountains taking on two routes from the UAE Off Road guide. The book has been described as the ultimate off-road accessory, that may be a bit over the top but it is pretty comprehensive and there is another for Oman sitting on our coffee table calling us too! We did discover the UAE one was a bit out of date despite having the 2010 fully revised edition and weren't able to complete the rocky mountain drive as described as the military have closed the road long before the final haul up the mountain.

Plenty of Wildlife

Driving on sand is huge fun as long as your tyres are soft and you are well equipped. As with a boat you need to take everything with you - food, water, tools and essentials to assist with basic repairs as well as means to navigate and communicate. The latter in case a rescue is needed (our insurance covers this type of receovery but you might have to wait a while for someone to arrive). Jeanie Jeep was loaded with everything except, as we discovered mid-morning, drinking vessels! We had remembered the kettle, t-bags, soft drinks, milk, ice, fois gras, sandwiches, rugs, cushions, water, suntan lotion, first aid kit, iPod, camera and more. The morning took us along some reasonably firm gravely roads in the sand past the camel race tracks into totally quiet countryside, no engines, no airplanes nothing except the occasional bird. At our morning break we spotted all sorts of animal tracks in the sand including a snakes S shaped trail over the sand.We later saw a large lizard by the trackside but failed to photograph it before it disappeared into a burrow.

Tyre deflation was not necessary according to the book but cresting a rise and getting a little confused between the route as described, the GPS coordinates and what we were actually seeing, a passing 4x4 truck made us realise that the route lay covered with blown sand. After a couple of attempts down and up the dune in low geared four wheel drive the three of us set about deflating the tyres by almost half to around 17 PSI. Suddenly the steep sand was easy to climb, Jeanie Jeep roared over the top and onto the firmer track once more. Kevin carefully negotiated us over the main road (not good for soft tyres) and back onto our track this time in amongst the irrigated green fields that give their name to the area Falaj (meaning irrigated) Al Moalla. Beyond them we were in the ghaf forest where finding a shady spot under a patch of trees not too overlooked by farms or modern villas, we picniced whilst reinflating the tyres much to the amusement of the locals for whom the track was the village high street. They initially kept stopping to see if we had broken down but eventually just passed with a cheery wave. One young teen confidently driving alone in a tatty pickup truck with no registration plates - he'll not cost his parents much in driving lessons when he's old enough to take his test.

Ghaf Trees -
amazing how much actually grows in the desert

After lunch we headed further east to the rocky mountains that divide the UAE from Oman for a drive up Jebel Yibir, the tallest mountain in the UAE at 1527m . As we climbed out of Wadi Khabb from the village of Tawain the views were spectacular but our pleasure was short lived when we found a green and yellow military sign marking the closed border area blocking our way. We couldn't get even to the 1350 metre mark promised in the guide. Dave was driving and headed off to our left up a fairly major track. We soon discovered that construction lorries used this route and instead of stopping at a campsite described in the guide, the newly cut track carried on through to the tarmac road we'd set off from. The towering grey and pink mountains devoid of all but the most hardy trees and goats are incredible. More amazing was that we passed from time to time, at least on our way in, small farms with a few goats and the odd camel or donkey. The wadi itself must be an awesome sight when it rains judging by the mangled debris scattered along its banks.

Arid mountain view - all grey and pink rock

We plan plenty more trips into the desert and for some serious dune and wadi bashing have joined a 4x4 club as solo trips into the real sand are not advised. Our first club outing will be a day trip for families combined with a picnic later this month to the New Shwaib area close to the Omani mountains (again). Can't wait although we do need to add some deck chairs to our equipment and this time I'll remember to pack some mugs!

Officially A House Wife

2011-02-20T11:59:00.001+03:00

Not Surprised the Vaccuum Didn't Work

I am officially a housewife or at least that's what the residency permit I was issued this morning says... however today I have been a plumber (unblocked a bath plughole with a wooden BBQ skewer), an electrician (changed a rickety two pin plug for a sturdy British three pin) and done some vaccuum maintenance. All this alongside several housewifely loads of laundry.

Since we arrived in the Middle East we've found that on the plus side the electric supply uses British three pin plugs, however most of the electrical gizmos on sale are European ie two pin. As a result we have acquired an array of adaptors. There are some other solutions, some more safe than others; you can buy socket covers rather like the child proof ones sold in the UK but with two holes to accomodate a two pin plug whilst several of the sockets in our apartment have had something jammed into the top hole! The latter is very annoying when you try to insert a UK plug.

For my part items that are regularly plugged and unplugged like the vaccuum or a phone charger are better off with plugs to match the sockets. For the rest like the kettle or table lamps once it has been plugged in it really doesn't matter, though investing in a few Terminator multisockets with holes designed to take any style plug makes life easier.

Back to the vaccuum; if you look closely at the picture above you can spot the sticky tape that held the plug together, the tiny screw that was loose inside the plug and the ingenious use of a self-taping screw to hold one a few strands of the wires in place! The other wire was wandering round with the loose screw, how I didn't electrocute myself the first time I hoovered I'll never know! And, on completing the cleaning, I opened up the so called "bagless" machine to find a cotton bag jammed solid with fluff, desert dust and hair - presumably the maid's tasks didn't extend to emptying the thing. Ah well at least I can only blame myself for shoddy housework!

Tidy Replacement Plug

Getting Advice on Expat Life

2011-02-18T09:36:00.001+03:00

If you've ever found yourself in a strange town looking for a particular brand of widget or wanted to know the cost of living or the average rent for a two bed apartment in another country or some similar such question then the Internet is a wonderful invention. We often wonder how we would have coped without our laptops and almost instant access to almost accurate information!

During our time in Bahrain and again now in Dubai we've found a few useful websites. Some were simply tourist information like the best places to eat, shop, rent a car, what to see and what to miss, others belonged to utilities providers or contained TV schedules or were blogs by fellow expats. And the most read have proved to be expat-focused forums where questions could be raised and answers found. In no particualar order here are our top favourites:

Live Work Explore - both the Bahrain and the Dubai sites have been useful for general info and the shopping pages which list shops by type are a great start when looking for a specific item. They also publish books which as handy for reading in bed and their maps of Dubai live in our car.

Expat Woman - the Dubai forum is a great (mainly female) community where someone can usually help you out with an answer to the oddest problem and you can waste away a whole morning doing nothing but reading posts if you are not careful!

Expat Blog - The Bahrain section of this website helped us get to Bahrain and through the first few weeks while some of the blogs promoted have become firm favourites (you'll find them in the Blogs I Read list on the left of this page)

Expat Arrivals - a bit biased here as Susie has contributed to the Bahrain section of this expat site.

Time Out - we occasionally buy the print edition of this weekly listings magazine, usually when we've got visitors but regularly refer to the reviews online for both Bahrain and most recently Dubai. Also a good source of info when trying to locate that particular shop or destination

Trip Advisor - a great wealth of restuarant and hotel reviews we usually refer to when travelling and as a result found some gems in Athens, Austin and locally.

Gulf Daily News - local papers are also a good way of getting to know the place. The GDN is great for the Court Circular as well as local and international news and whats on info plus it carries the UK Guardian's Quick Crossword if you fancy a bit of a brain workout.

The one thing you rapidly learn though is that the knowledge gleaned is not always correct but not intentionally. Rules change, new roads are built, businesses move but part of the fun of life as an expat is coping with the unexpected so treat what you read as a guide and learn to laugh when things don't quite work out as planned.

Volunteeering

2011-02-06T11:17:00.003+03:00

Introduction
Spent the weekend helping out with managing the racing at Dubai Offshore Sailing Club (DOSC). The event was the 4th round of the UAE National Championships, two days of dinghy racing. For the sake of readers not familiar with the magic art of dinghy racing I'll start with Saturday and then go back to Friday for reasons that I hope become obvious as I write. The aim of our volunteering is that we want to be back on the water as soon as possible and helping out at DOSC can bump you up the waiting list of of membership applicants whilst from our perspectve it would help us get to know a few people here.

The Start
Waking up on Saturday morning was hard, Kevin arrived on a slightly delayed flight from the UK at just after 1am so we'd had about five hours sleep. Arriving at DOSC in time to get a coffee and collect our lunch pack we joined the race team briefing. Today's task was to be part of the committee boat crew. The boat in question is a broad dory with a pair of huge outboard engines providing a flat, relatively stable platform from which to start the races even in the strong breeze that was kicking up a choppy sea. Four races in all, five starts per race for the different groups of boats.

Sailing dinghies come in all shapes and sizes and boats of an identical design are termed a class. Here in Dubai the classes were Optimists - the largest class with around 30 entries, Laser 4.7s - the next largest group, Laser Radials, standard Lasers, Catarmerans and an Open dinghy class for everything else with just two boats a trimaran and a two handed monhull. Lasers look like windsurfer boards with a shallow cockpit and a single unsupported mast, the difference betwen them being mainly related to the size of the sail and the age of the single crew. Radials and 4.7s are sailed by teenagers, the Standard with its larger sail requires a modicum of bodyweight, so is usually sailed by (heavier) adults. Optimists are tiny bathtubs whose helms must be under 13 and are mostly under 10, they zip around like a cloud of tiny gnats apparently fearless even in the waves and stiff wind that was blowing. They treat capsizes as part of the fun and often have to be entreated by their coaches to leave the water when close to exhaustion!

For piccies see here

Laying the Course
So the day began. For the committee boat the technical part is setting the course correctly with an upwind start so, having anchored a mere five minutes north of the harbour in the partial lee of man-made islands of The World to the west of us, the measuring began. Suze (a sailing instructor here who we know from Bahrain) stood in the bow measuring wind angles and the outer buoy was laid so that the start line between boat and bouy was as close to right angles to the wind as possible. Then the buoy layers headed off upwind on the course given by Race Officer Joel (DOSC's Sailing Manager) to lay the windward marks, a nearer one for the small Optimists, the further one for everyone else. Then they completed laying other buoys to provide a selection of triangular and sausage shaped courses. Every boat would sail a triangle and a number of sausages but depending on size and therefore speed the combination was varied by class.

Racing yachts and dinghies like cricket is a gentlemans sport with rules that seem archaic and meaningless to the untutored eye while the actual racing is not a prime candidate as a spectator sport unless viewed from another boat moving around the course. Like a good novel a race has three principle parts the Start, the actual race and the Finish with rules that govern each. The Committee Boat is primarily concerned with the Start and controls everything with flags back up by optional sound signals.

Tasks were allocated Joel was in overall control, Kevin had the watch, Marie (an Indian national looking for work as a lawyer) and Susie were to manage the flags, Suze to record the actual starters (the boats being identified by numbers on their sails) together with race start times and Kevin 2 (an Amercian employed by one of the UAE newspapers) had the video camera to record the starts to ensure we identified correctly any boats over the line before the start. The bouy laying boat assumed a position at the outer end of the line to assist in the latter task too.

Flags Explained
With the orange flag up indentifying ourselves as the Committe Boat and already surrounded by a flock of Oppies we raised the red and white triangular AP (officially the signal flag called the Answering Pennant form the days when flags were used by HM's Navy to communicate between ships) to indicate a postponement together with two horn blasts. We would not start dead on the 11am indicated in the sailing instructions issued to the sailors before we left the shore. When all was ready with flags untied for a quick hoist, Kevin took up the watch counting down to a convenient time of 4 minutes past the hour. Down came the AP with a blast of the horn. The oppies began to converge on us expectantly. One minute later as the AP came down up went their white class flag with its Q logo, thirty or so oppies surged away dodging and weaving around their fellows to find the best spots on the line. Another 50 seconds and Kevin started his count down again 10, 9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 go, up went the square Preparatory flag with its blue boarder and white central square (representing the letter "P"), Joel simultaneously sounding the horn, Kevin 2 taking his place behind Joel looking down the line.

The youngsters careering about in the hectic seas peered over their shoulders at us and those who hadn't already done so at the class flag hoist, set their watches as the "P" went up. Three minutes later and one minute before their start Maria took the "P" down at Kevin's time signal. Then "thirty seconds" Kevin called, Susie undid the class flag string whilst Maria readied the yellow class flag of the next set of starters, the Laser 4.7s. 5,4,3,2,1, Go coincided with a flag down, and a flag up. The oppies zipped away cleanly not a single recall (for a boat over the line) necessary, they were beating (sails hauled right in and sailing as close to the wind as possible), mostly heading south-ish at 30 degrees or so to the line away from us. Meanwhile we went through the same sequence another four times starting the 4.7s then the Radials followed by the few Standard Lasers and finally the combined Cats and Open boats. We hadn't time to watch the melee of boats heading up the course.

Time to Watch the Sailing
The high tech cats and the single trimaran choose to hang around a few hundred yards off our stern behind us before their start. It was odd going through the process without actually seeing the boats it was intended for, leaving the crew and helm of the sole Kestrel with a bright yellow hull to plough up and down the line alone. As their class flags came down the multihulls with their almost transparent sails came whistling through. The Kestrel pulled in her sails and headed on a course as close as possible to the wind slicing through the now sizeable waves at perhaps 40 degrees to the wind. It would take them several changes of direction (tacks) sailing around twice the actual distance before they reached their target and could ease the sails to reach to the next mark of their first triangle. Meanwhile on board we helped Suze complete the paperwork, with start times and fleet numbers before relaxing for the next hour or so. We could watch, chat and potentially eat our lunches before race one was complete then we would run through the starting process all over again. Joel occasionally dealt with infringements into the course area by boats minding visiting Oppie competitors.

Four races later we were exhausted but happy, not a single hitch on the committee boat and only a few individual recalls of overeager Oppies who all returned to cross the line correctly or took their penalty so we didn't need recourse to disqualifications. One or two boats approached us after completing one or other race to lodge a protest against a boat they felt had infringed the rules in some way. The crew was instructed to fill in a form once ashore, we informed the Race Office and ultimately Joel convened a Protest Committee including Kevin to hear three protests none of which impacted the results and two of which involved the same two Oppie helms - young pirates in the making! We ended the day with the prize giving (first, second and third in each class) and a BBQ of burgers and sausages.

The Finish
Back to Friday, overall a much windier day. Kevin was somewhere in the air between Las Vegas, Gatwick and ultimately Dubai. After a 10am briefing of the sailors and then the race management volunteers (race officers and safety boats) with one last dash to the loos, three of us headed for a tiny 22 foot yacht (a J22) which was to form one end of the finish line. Joel provided directions over the VHF radio and we dropped two small fortress anchors, later we added a slightly larger one from one of the safety boats to prevent us dragging further towards the beach in the rough seas! An outer bouy was laid to mark the other end of the line. The J22 was bobbing up and down some 50 metres from start line, almost at right angles to it and not far off the stone reef protecting the beach. All three of us lined up part of the boat with buildings ashore to check if we wer moving, a precaution which became a feature of our day!

Boom off and stowed below to make space on deck we hoisted a blue flag on the mast to mark the actual end of the line, Alistair, sailing instructor James (coincidentally also a Harris) and I settled down with horn and clipboards to await the first finishers. Alistair called out sail numbers and boat class as they approached then sounded the horn as boats crossed the line. James and Susie each recorded the time to the nearest second for each competitor to ensure we captured everyone. The boats arrived in batches and at times it was quite hectic with the horn sounding almost continuously. Some boats failed to cross the actual line, passing the wrong side of the outer end - their helms would be cross to find they'd scored a Did Not Finish (DNF) but after eight races could discard their two worst scores.

In fact once the first boat's time was recorded for a class with the exception of the open & cat classes only the position of the finisher was needed. Twenty minutes was added to the time of the first finisher to compute the time limit for each class, any boats crossing the line after that would be said to be out of time and score a DNF. We relayed these time limits as they were established to the Committee Boat so Joel could judge when to start the next race. For the open boats and the cats each boat's time would be needed to calculate on handicap their actual finishing position. The handicap attempts to level out the differences between the boats to enable different boats to race each other - another apparently mysterious art which works surprisingly well!

Anchors
The little J22 had to re-anchor after race one as it had dragged dangerously near to the rocks extending the finish line to a ridiculous length. Through the day the numbers of competitors diminished as the wind ground down the stamina of the young helms and capsizes resulted in mechanical failure for other boats. Eventually half the orginal fleet of about sixty boats remained so the finishing task became easier. For the final race with a slight change in wind direction we moved to use the end of the start as our own outer distance anchoring at 90 degrees to the start line. Alistair was feeling the pain of hauling up anchors by the time we were done plus he'd had to hold onto all three on the tiny unguarded foredeck on his own whilst we motored into position each time as Susie & James' weight was needed in the cockpit to keep the outboard in the water in the bumpy seas!

By 4 pm everyone had finished. It was time to hoist all three anchors once more (we felt sympathy for Alistair but he did volunteer to heave on the lines one final time), stow them below and head in. The wind had eased only a tad so the little outboard struggled to keep the boat making way towards the harbour as waves broke over our seaward side. Everyone got a thorough soaking and by the time we were tied up the chilly breeze ensured discomfort all round. A quick check with the race office to confirm tomorrow and I was in the car with the aircon off to drive home for a hot shower and a long evening at home before heading to the airport.

So there you have it - volunteering as a race officer is as important to ensure a successful race series as having enthustiastic competitors to take part and (almost) as enjoyable.

Winter in Dubai

2011-02-03T20:44:00.002+03:00

Its nice to be back in Dubai after the chilly almost zero temperatures of South East England. For those of you in the frozen north I thought I'd describe Middle Eastern winters...

Winter here is a time to do all those outdoor things which everyone else does in the summer. Sight seeing, days at the beach, camping (admittedly in the desert which is a bit difficult to do in the Home Counties), actually sailing rather than lolling about trying to get cool in the sea by an anchored boat, lounging by the pool, walking outdoors, BBQ suppers and cultivating flowers (mostly petunias which are amazingly hardy). The air conditioning is off and the patio doors are open most of the day unless it's windy, in which case the washing remains firmly inside behind closed indoors. A day of wind earlier this week converted our balcony to a sandpit, battered the petunias and whisked away our neighbours undies. Now trips outside end with sandy footsteps across the floor inside. I'm beginning to understand why everywhere has tiled floors, carpets just couldn't cope.

It is a time of clouds; most of the year the sky is blue and the appearance of cloud is a thing to remark on but since November there have been periods when clouds fill the sky for several days at a time. Evening temperatures drop a little but not as much as they do further north and a thin cardigan or jacket is required. Occasionally it even rains and when it does it can be spectacular. Not Indian monsoon-like for hours and hours but in a couple of hours sufficient rain falls to flood streets(good drainage isn't a priority in many areas) and cause a good few car accidents. On the plus side the rain washes away the dust so when the sun comes out again palm trees and plants are freshly green rather than grubby grey. The effect is almost like the new leaves of a European spring.

Indoors is often warmer than outside but mostly nights are as warm as days - as I write at 21:00 it is currently a comfortable 24 degrees indoors and 20 outside. The average daytime temperature in London is usually around 21 degrees June to August with 12 degrees at night (the Met Office figures for 2010 show last summer in the UK was slightly warmer than the 30 year average). So there you have it. For a few months of the year life in the Middle East is almost like home and we can forget the hum of the air conditioning, the fact that water from the cold tap can almost scald the unwary and that the effort of walking down the street necessitates changing every stitch of clothing afterwards until next May or June.

Our New Home

2011-01-17T17:01:00.001+03:00

View Of Central Courtyard From Balcony
(pool, BBQ area & kids playground)

Our Balcony - Outdoor Dining

The Living-Dining-Kitchen

Spare Bedroom - Lacking a Bed!

More Paperwork

2011-01-13T13:22:00.000+03:00

Dubai seems to exceed even the Bahraini's for paperwork. Kevin received his residency visa and work permit a few days ago. So now armed with lots of copies of them we could move on to the next stage and acquire the services like utilities and TV & broadband for our apartment.

This morning we had the assistance of the relocation company to see us through a number of the hurdles we need to go through. Ana kindly drove us around and knew where all the offices were as well as exactly what was needed. Two hours later, a whole tree's worth of paper and over a thousand dirhams the poorer, we have a DEWA account and Kevin has a driving licence. On the way we also picked up forms to apply for an alcohol licence and a Du account.

DEWA is the utility authority for water (supply and drains) and electricity. They required copies of (deep breath); the tenancy contract, the landlords passport, Kevins passport and residency visa and our landlord's proof of ownership [of the property] document. In addition they required sight of Kevin's passport, a completed form detailing our PO box and phone numbers as well as the property's DEWA account number plus a 1000 AED deposit and 110 AED connection fee (a total of around £195).

Once you have your residency visa it is illegal to drive on a foreign driving licence here so it was imperative that Kevin obtained a UEA driving licence as soon as possible. This can be acquired at a municipal office as long as you have the relevant paperwork (another deep breath); a sight test (100AED), a passport photo, copies of both sides of a UK drivers licence (the photo card one), a copy of the residency visa in your passport and a letter from your sponsor ie Kevin's employer. He handed over another chunk of cash, they took his photo again and created his photocard style driving licence on the spot. I'll get mine once I have my residency visa and Kevin has written a letter giving me permission to drive. The former is waiting on my passport renewal as it has less than six months on it and the latter is needed as he is my sponsor here! Thankfully UK passport holders don't have to take a series of lessons and a driving test.

All that's needed now is a company stamp on the alcohol licence application form then Kevin can pop along to any alcohol store to get his licence as he already has a letter from his employer stating they are a Free Zone company (no idea why but its a requirement). The one item outstanding is a Du account, this is the company that provides cable TV, broadband and landlines to the estate where we are going to live. An application form for a new connection is in our hands but we need to check with our landlord whether they want us to go ahead or whether we should pay them for their existing connection... if we request a new connection they'll lose their residential phone number(s).

I am very glad that guiding us through all this paperwork we have a relocation company and a PRO (Kevin's company have two PRO's whose sole function is to obtain visas and similar paperwork for both the UAE and any country employees visit in the course of their duties).

Wonderland

2011-01-12T18:24:00.000+03:00

Looking Like Minature Skyscrapers
A view frm the Burj Khalifa

Well our friends Paul and Eileen have headed for the airport today (Jan 12th) and despite spending ten days exploring our new hometown and its surrounds I am still bemused by where we've landed. It really is a surreal city. Where else can you be whisked up 124 floors in a few seconds and look down on a mass of sky scrapers appearing like minature Lego towers at your feet? Where else can claim so many records for the biggest, the only, the tallest, the grandest etc etc? Big and brash, this wonderland is one crazy place to be. Only in Dubai would four Irish comedians perform their more than slightly risque (judged by the mores of the locals) acts outdoors under a band of steel-blue lights rising up an empty 30-40 storey block across from the garden we were in. The lights courtesy of one of the audience who apparently was the project manager responsible for the building and having attended the night before thought it a suitablely grand gesture for the finale of the Irish comedy festival at McGettigans bar.

Four By Four Adventures

Yet go out in the desert and you can find yourself a place where there is no noise; no aircon humming, no traffic and no planes overhead, just you, the wind and the birds! A village arrayed around a huge empty square tucked away in the sand dunes with just a dirt track for access to the 21st century. Nearby fenced compounds clustered around a few trees held camels or protected green crops, and a small troop of donkeys wandered across the stoney scrub at the foot of the mountains. Mountains of limestone etched by the wind with huge dunes of red sand reaching alomst to their summit on the windward side, a couple of four by fours perched high up.

Birmingham on Sea?

Speaking of remoteness, back in the city you can find a beach that is almost deserted, ten minutes by car from our apartment in the Jumierah area, north of the Burj Al Arab. It is a place where clear blue seas lap gently at golden sand, completely lacking in any amenities except somewhere to park your car and a rubbish bin, it is overlooked only by a row of suburban villas a few hundred metres back. Have a quiet picnic, a gentle swim, lie in the sun enjoying the peace or wander along the shore to collect a few more exotic seashells. A complete contrast to touristy JBR further south with its Walk and Plaza full of trendy shops and cafes. I laughed when a friend called JBR "Birmingham on Sea" due to the rows tower blocks which crowd together just back from the sand. To me, from the sea, they look lined up as if about to attack some unknown giant invader, the silver "caterpillar" containing a ski slope that rears up over the Mall of the Emirates maybe?

Desert Donkeys

We spent a morning in the hustle and bustle of a souk; gold, textile or spice where the sound of Arabic, Punjabi and other tongues together with traffic and horns compete with the smells of nutmeg, cinnamon and coriander while at every turn another alley reveals new sights leaving your senses battered and overwhelmed. Old Dubai with it's abra's (water taxis), trading dhows and souks is in total contrast to New Dubai yet simply adds to the feeling of being in Dreamland. A world plotted and planned orginally back in the 1950's in a small, plain council chamber down by the creek, not much bigger than the average lounge. Later that day, on searching for the ladies loo after a late lunch in a slightly tacky pizza restaurant, our hunt revealed us to be in a classy four star hotel with glamorous facilities! The Arabian Courtyard is in central Dubai opposite the excellent underground museum and proves that it pays to look beneath the dusty outer shell as sometimes as not everything is as scruffy as it seems!

Burj Khalifa viewed from underneath

Serviced Apartment Living

2010-12-29T09:39:00.001+03:00

Dressed For Christmas

Serviced apartments are not as much of a cushy life as you might think. Our temporary residence in Dubai claims to be "hotel apartments" and our last home in Bahrain "serviced apartments". The main difference seems to be that in a hotel they "service" the apartment most days whereas in Bahrain it was twice a week. Living for month or more in a serviced apartment as opposed to holidaying at Butlins for a couple of weeks means you don't spend your days exploring or lounging on the beach and aren't eating out every night so you'd expect them to be equipped to meet different needs... not necessarily:

On the plus side its easy to move into a fully furnished servicd apartment with just a suitcase of clothes but don't expect everything to be a home from home. The modern boxy sofa in Dubai has so little padding in its seat that after a short period of lounging the frame starts to wheedle its way into your consciousness. In the bedroom when both of us sit up in bed the frame and mattress slide across the tiled floor creating an ever-widening gap between the base and the headboard. Another place we can't lounge in comfort!

Spot the Mysteriously Missing Pillow

There is a reason why hotels have fitted carpets, they deaden noise. Here in the dusty, dry climate, the passion for tiled floors and a few rugs makes cleaning easy. But it also means that every movement of dining chairs and other furniture in flats around us or late evening homecomers in the main corridor echoes through the surrounding flats, I miss the multiple doors we had in Bahrain that meant that only two flats shared a lobby. It also has to be said that the double glazing in the Dubai building is a poor noise insulator so we sleep to the hum of traffic on the nearby motorway and are woken by construction work commencing before 7am.

Decent Sized Kitchen

As previously mentioned provided kitchen equipment may not match your needs or be up to scratch. The Belvedere in Bahrain provided a comprehensive set of fairly new saucepans whereas the MiNC offering is tired with non-stick peeling off and sizes more suited to catering for a family of ten than the four people the apartment accomodates. Both places offered blunt knives and in Dubai I've had to ask for a replacement clothes airer to ensure we didn't end up with rust marks on everything. In Bahrain I purchased one as the washer drier rapidly became the enemy in the kitchen.T-towels, dish cloths and other kitchen sundires are not provided and the crockery may not suit your habits - cereal/soup bowls and mugs being a key short coming for a European. On the funny side five of the six spoons supplied as desert spoons are the size of a UK tablespoon! Don't think I'd want to fill my suitcase with mugs, bowls and a potato peeler though.

Bathroom: Style Won Over Practicality

Anyone who has stayed in a hotel in recent years has become used to instructions to hang up your towels to reuse or leave them on the floor/in the bath to request new ones. The aim of saving laundry costs is dressed up as the guest being more eco friendly. Not a chance here, most days the bedding and towels are changed and mysteriously one of the pillows vanished during one bed change! In both places only one thin pillow per head was supplied but at least in Dubai they have happily supplied additional ones. The Bahrainis provided one set of bed linen per bed and, as the "enemy in the kitchen" was too small, residents used the self-service laundry to wash and dry them as required.

I joked on Facebook earlier this week about how many men does it take to service an apartment... the answer here is three and the job they do is purely superficial. The bathrooms, and there are two and half of them (the half being a guest loo) sport glass washbasins on glass stands with stainless steel supports, not ideal for easy cleaning and showing up every last bit of dust, rust and soap splashes. Corners of the kitchen and bathroom floors are filling up with dirt the daily mopping never reaches, whilst elsewhere net curtains, essential as most windows are overlooked by nearby apartments, don't look as if they ever been laundered, their headings are nearer black than cream. Come back the lovely young man at the Belverdere who was scupulous in his efforts and left our apartment spick and span twice a week even if he never hoovered under the heavy beds!

Long term living also requires you make your own entertainment in the evening, we packed a set of playing cards for Dubai as based on our Bahrain experience we rightly guessed that the TV fodder wouldn't be up to much. Most TV services in the Middle East are distributed by satellite with apartment blocks like ours paying for a limited set of services. Hence our Dubai apartment has a lengthy list of stations but the actual available choice is limited to a few news channels like BBC World and Al Jezeera plus Dubai One and some movie channels. After a Brit style curry at the Brick Lane cafe last night we watched "Ella Enchanted" as the provided network connection isn't up to streaming of programmes via a UK VPN, an option open to us in Bahrain.

Living Room

Second Bedroom Has A Balcony

Dubai Christmas

2010-12-28T09:01:00.003+03:00

Beach in Fujairah

Our first Christmas in the Middle East is over and for a variety of reasons it was very different to a UK one. Starting with the weather;: no snow, plenty of sunshine though it did rain as we drove over the mountains on the way back from Fujairah but not as hot as Joberg where I'd been the week before. Secondly packing up and moving to the UAE just a few days before ensured that it was just the two of us so we had to entertain ourselves with a picnic on the beach, a visit to the Friday Market, Masafi (open seven days a week!) and a lovely traditional turkey dinner in the evening at the Rivington Grill though we didn't manage to secure an outside table with views of Dubai's Dancing Fountains.

Christmas for obvious reasons is not celebrated by the majority of Arabs though many but not all shops, hotels and restuarants have some low key decoration like an artificial tree with a few baubles. For someone from the UK so used to seeing lights and decorations covering every surface and lamp-post from late October onwards it's a refreshing change. Our temporary residence, the Al Barsha Hotel Apartments, has a token tree in the entrance hall and I managed to buy a set of three red blown glass minature trees to stand beside the TV in our living room. In my brief tour round the Dubai Mall I failed to find tinsel or garlands but all the remaining Christmas decorations were already reduced in price just a few days before the main event! Four gold tree shaped place holders now grace the dining table and a skating penguin musical snow scene (from M&S) sits on the coffee table. The latter is tacky but fun - wind it up, give it a shake and the be-scarfed penguin rotates round his small pond to a wonky rendition of Jingle Bells as snow and silver stars fall around him.

In an organised moment before I left Bahrain for two weeks in Joberg in early December, I had managed to write some Christmas cards and Kevin put them in the post shortly afterwards. However we were too busy purchasing food supplies, mugs and other bits to manage to get each other any presents. When you move countries and end up in self-catering accomodation you need basics like salt and pepper as well as the makings of a few meals. Our first home-cooked meal was a little oddly flavoured as I had salt & pepper plus some tex-mex spice powder, onions and garlic but no stock cubes! And as with our Bahrain flat one person's idea of what a kitchen needs is not necessarily yours. The knives are blunt, there is one medium sized saucepan and two enormous ones more suited to cooking for ten, one medium and one small frying pan. So far all meals have been cooked in the small saucepan and the larger frying pan as everything else is not suited to the quantities for two. The bowls provided are rice bowls so breakfasts were a challenge until we managed to find some suitable for a helping of cereal and milk. Our other purchases so far have been mugs, glasses, dish clothes and cling film, we accidently brought a t-towel with us as it was in use before we left! I have discovered that you can pile spinach on a dinner plate add a knob of butter, invert a second plate on the top and successfully zap it for a couple of minutes!

The Plaza JBR

Back to all things Christmas; Boxing Day fell on a Sunday so Kevin was back at work and I spent the day organising some more flat viewings - we had seen one in the JBR on Christmas Day but the ex-pat Brit landlady wouldn't budge on payment terms and wanted AED 150K in one cheque. The flat was nicely furnished and clean, unlike some. I opened a fridge door in one Dubai Marina apartment and cockroaches scattered - yuk!

A word of explanation about rental terms in Dubai - before the recession bit, rents were paid mostly annually or possibly bi-annually with the tenant handing over actual cheques (when was the last time you wrote one of those?) for all the payments prior to taking up residence. Then there were more prospective tenants than property. Now, although good property still moves fast, the tenant is more able to dictate the terms. On top of the rent there is a 5% agency fee and usually utility charges (called DEWA after the acronym of the supply company) plus a satellite TV/broadband subscription. And the agents are extremely lazy when compared to the marketing and management efforts put in by the UK agencies we use, few adverts have interior pictures, most cannot show you round a portfolio of properties instead relying on phone calls to other agents to get keys etc etc.

Interior of Apartment in Arto, The Greens

Despite this we have managed to secure a two bed flat in The Greens. It is directly from the owner so can pay by bank transfer bi-monthly, no agency fees and they have agreed to keep their DEWA and OSN (a sateliite/broadband provider) agreements going until we can get our own in place which was very kind of them. Our moving date is dependant on their plans as he is off to college in Cape Town whilst she and their baby daughter are moving not far away to her parents home in a nearby development but we hope to be in by mid-January. The Greens is convenient for Kevin's office as there is a bridge over the Sheikh Zaiyed road (the main multi-lane artery through new Dubai from the creek to the port and beyond). It's a mature community with low rise buildings clustered round gardens containing swimming pools, gyms, BBQ areas, grass and trees. The tree-lined streets are quiet and there are shops and restuarants too. The apartment is on the first floor and has a huge balcony (or is it a terrace when its that big?) all down one side complete with dinning table and BBQ so we are looking forward to moving in and having a bit of an outdoor life style until it gets too hot next summer.

Travel Plans

2010-12-13T09:33:00.000+03:00

Well finally after what can now be recalled as some rather funny moments there is a plan with dates for our relocation in place. Kevin arrives back in Bahrain on Friday from his working week in Kuwait & Roumania. I arrive from Jo'berg on Sunday night (actually officially I suppose 01:45 is Monday morning) then on Tuesday Gulf Agencies arrive to pack our personal effects for shipping and on Wednesday we head for the airport and another adventure in Dubai.

Paul, Eileen, Kevin & Susie
Calpe, Feb 2002

A serviced apartment has been booked close to the Emirates Mall (a little bit of shopping apres skiing anyone?) for a month. During that time we will celebrate Christmas, welcome our friends Paul & Eileen who are flying out to spend the New Year with us, and find somewhere to live. Thanks to Kevin's efforts when he was there last week we now have a Dubai bank account and his residency/work permit is in progress. I though, it seems, may have to return to the UK as our marriage certificate needs to be seen by the UAE embassy in the country where my passport was issued! If I do I will also renew my passport as it expires in June... gosh it hardly seems like it is almost ten years since we were setting off on our Mediterranean sailing voyage.

And those funny moments: realising that the relocation company didn't know where Bahrain was and that the agent they appointed to handle our move was never going to be up and about at the same time as anyone in the Middle East due to time zone differences! Then, being informed we needed counselling about our tax situation; what situation... it's simple we are non-resident Brits so pay no tax except on any income from our UK properties. Apparently the agent thought we were Americans moving to the Middle East for the first time... doh!

Looking forward to sharing with you the next chapter of our ex-pat lives.

Introducing Lillian Frances JvN

2010-12-09T14:34:00.000+03:00

Our new grand daughter arrived on 30 Nov to proud parents Maddy & Marais in Roodepoorte, S Africa. As Kevin is working in Dubai and beyond for two weeks, I headed off to see the new baby:

Lily, born 30 Nov 2010

My New Buggy

Proud Mummy

Maddy & Lily

New Outfit

A Greek Trip

2010-11-29T10:11:00.000+03:00

Just back from a few days in Greece. Kevin was working most of the time but I was able to play tourist for a few days. The highlight was a walking tour organised by Athens Walking Tours. Three hours in the company of one of the most interesting and informative guides. Voula shared not only her enthusiam for Ancient Greece but also insights into Greek daily life today and more recent Greek history. I hadn't for example realised that Prince Otto of Germany was appointed King of Greece by Britain, Russia and Germany in 1833, the Greek's first king! When he was overthrown some thirty years later the Greeks offered their thone to a Dane and their family continued as the Royal Family of Greece until the 1970's.

In the evenings we ate in some great tavernas: "To Kafeneio" which had a wonderful log fire and is a bit off the beaten track, patronised by young Greeks rather than tourists, but still in Plaka. You may have seen this place in a Jamie Oliver tv programme on mezedes, but it is unspoiled by 15 minutes of fame. We ate there twice it was so good and got to taste their new wine which was wonderful! Our second find was a taverna simply named "Taberna" but known as "Dimitris and Grigoris" behind the Hotel Caravel. The menu had a selection of favourites and some more unusual dishes - a great lemony sauce on the stuffed vine leaves but the grilled peppers were mouth numbingly hot, lips and tongues were tingling for sometime afterwards.

And finally, in a basement bar "Bakaliarakia o Damigos" not far from Sytagmou Square specialising in cod as the name suggests, we devoured a lovely meat dish after a selection of freshly prepared mezedes. Their olives were very tasty too. Here the wine was served in aluminium jugs filled from huge barrels mounted above the diners heads and the staff were extremely friendly. Again no tourists, in fact we saw very few visitors anywhere, The weather was good, sunny but not too hot so I'd recommend Athens in November and if you want to locate these tavernas yourselves look them up on Trip Advisor.

More of our pictures of Athens in the Autumn here

Tadpole

2010-11-21T18:52:00.000+03:00

Tadpole at half tide yesterday... it's the ideal desert island - just us and the birds.

Cruising on a Small Boat

2010-11-20T08:39:00.000+03:00

One Man and His Boat

It's the Eid holidays here so we are just back from three days on board on Shawa'al, more camping than cruising but fun none the less.

There are two Eid holiday periods, the first one Eid Al Fitr is at the end of Ramadan. This was back in September when we were in Texas and Kevin missed out on the days off so this time he took the whole week as holiday. Eid Al Adha marks the Hajj when Muslims celebrate God intervening to provide Abraham an alternative to sacrificing his son. Abraham's alternative sacrifice was a lamb and driving to the yacht club past the animal pens near the abbatoir we saw crowds of cars earlier in the week; 4x4s and pickups waiting to purchase their "lambs", most of them looked like the usual imported tatty sheep, more mutton than lamb. Traditionally each family eats one third, gives a third to friends, relatives or neighbours and a futher third to the poor and needy. This Eid also provides several days of public holidays mid week so most people add Sunday and Thursday to take the whole week off. It's a bit like Christmas in the UK with everyone in party mode and most businesses and many shops shut.

In preparation for our Eid holiday, on Monday Kevin with help from the two YC sailing instructors took Shawa'al's mast down so we could replace the windex. I washed out a huge amount of desert sand from it and the boom so everything runs so much better now, no struggling to heave up the main or pull down the jib halyard. I love small scale boating when it comes to tasks like this!

On Tuesday we sailed (or rather motored using the outboard and a whole can of fuel) the 30 miles or so south to the Hawar Islands where we tied up to the hotel pontoon. Enroute we'd worked out how to reset the GPS from "car mode" where it was searching for the nearest road back to nautical mode with bearings to waypoints. We also dug out the manual for the instruments and changed the damping on the depth so it wasn't constantly flicking from number to number though we still have to assume it was actually calculating the depth correctly for now. However the log wouldn't adjust to record a speed anywhere near the GPS SOG even allowing for the small amount of tidal stream. One for another day as going along at 2 knots when we patently aren't seems odd.

Dom The Circumnavigator and Donald

Most of the main island of Hawar is a military base and there is little to see on foot so it's fairly pointless leaving the hotel grounds. A notice at the entrance informs you not to take cameras outside of the hotel grounds too. That evening the five of us from the three boats who had made the trip took advantage of the hotel's Eid BBQ buffet supper. At 15BD a head for a buffet style meal plus v v expensive beers it was not a cheap night out. The event was complete with a DJ and appearances from Micky Mouse, Donald Duck and Tom & Jerry.

On the plus side the hotel staff were very welcoming, sending their watersports manager down to see if we needed anything shortly after we arrived and didn't charge us for using their pontoon or the loos in reception! But they did charge Dom from Tradewind almost £1.80 per carrier bag of ice. It's Golden Tulip Hotel that in the brochures looks like a desert island paradise - not so certain I'd want more than a weekend there though, bit remote and very expensive.

Desert Island Rubbish

Cormorants Feeding on Mashtan Reef

From Hawar, D'Artgnan sailed home to Sitra whilst Shawa'al and Tradewind headed just 12nm or so north to Mashtan a tiny island/sand bar at the bottom of a V shaped reef. It was great to sail after the previous day's calm but disappointing that the island is a complete tip covered in rubbish left by other boaters - plastic bottles, plastic plates even a plastic table cloth plus old carpets, bits of wood and general picnic detritus. Kevin & I picked our way through it to snorkel inside the reef but didn't linger on the shore for long. The snorkling however was good. In water you could sit in, fish were swimming all round us through the eel grass. Later we cooked on board the rafted boats - one gas ring per boat so rice and chicken stew was easy! Dom has a cockpit table so we sat down to dinner on his boat.

Afterwards Dom got in the shallow water, picked up his anchor and dragged Tradewind across the reef for about 30 metres or so to avoid any mast clashes in the night. You can't do that with the average 40 footer in the Solent! Then, shortly after the sun set (about 5pm!!) all three of us retired to bed as we'd brought nothing to do in the pitch dark! A few hours later a couple of motorboats arrived and played loud music until their generator stopped around 2am - unsocial to say the least. Woken by the sun streaming into the forepeak, at dawn we were up and away for the long beat north against the prevailing winds. Sailing small boats around the reefs in the warm sunshine is no great hardship though! Both boats arrived at the yacht club in time for a late lunch on Thursday afternoon.

After a lazy day, Friday night was latin music at the yacht club in celebration of the holiday weekend. A local band played a mix of latin and arabic tunes on the beach stage whilst club members, friends and relatives had supper, chatted and drank. A lovely evening with friends.

All in all a fun Eid holiday - we are both now totally acclimatised to sailing in shorts and t-shirts and life on the beach!

A Unique Sailing Achievement

2010-11-14T10:41:00.001+03:00

The Ritz-Carlton hotel has a very posh marina called the Royal Marina, the small basin is lined with neat green hedges and all but two of the boats are moderately sized gin-palaces. How do I know it's posh...well I wasn't allowed to park my Toyota Corolla inside yesterday but had to leave it on some adjacent waste land! I was there as the crew for one of the two sailing boats, "Tradewind" heading for another beach resort Hamila on the west coast of Bahrain. The adventure? Well an opportunity to sail under the Saudi Causeway doesn't happen very often.

Skipper Dominic and I set off around 11 once the food (cooked chicken, a couple of rounds of sandwiches and a bowl of carrot sticks) and water was stowed in the coolbox together with a supply of ice and some lemons. The wind was from the northwest and Tradewind's initial route was north to clear the land reclamation going n a few miles to the west of us just along from the Bahrain Fort. Huge machines were busy creating yet another island. We saw a tug pushing a barge that dwarfed heading across us towards Muharraq from the reclamation works and had a unique view of airplanes heading for Europe just after take off from the airport.This short adventure was for Dom part of a much larger one, a circumnavigation of mainland Bahrain over the Eid holiday. He had already spent the previous weekend sailing from the Yacht Club to Amwaj, then yesterday he and two crew had sailed to the Ritz-Carlton where berthing costs 100BD a night, thats around 180 pounds sterling! Fortunately the marina manager though Dom's unique epic voyage a good enough reason not to charge him!

Saturday's passage was to take us round the reefs that the nearby reclamation was exploiting, out as far as a red and white pole 4 or 5 nm north of the mailnand but not as far north as the next reef. Then turn slightly south of west to another pole marking the western corner of the reef and from there aim for the island that houses the border posts in the "middle of the causeway" before shaping a course through the bridge. It was lovely sailing hard on the wind with a reef and the No 2 genoa to start with, heading north away from the land. Once near the first post we tacked bearing away to head more south. The wind freed us off, we shook out the reef and eventually changed head sails for Tradewind's huge genoa. The conditions matched the boat's name! We were bowling along enjoying ourselves at 4 knots or more over the ground (a handheld GPS was our only source of data!) until the wind seemed to drop and our speed slowed to a crawl. A casual glance over the stern sometime later explained all - Tradewind had a fish pot attached to the rudder. It was soon removed and normal speed resumed. Chart and GPS in hand we picked off the various poles and the bridge started to appear in the haze.

Checking the GPS

Bahrain - Saudi Arabia Border crossing

Bridge Approaches

Underneath

Causeway snaking away towards Bahrain

Passing under the bridge was not too difficult at all. It was close to low water and the usual boiling melee of sea squeezing through the narrow gap between the islands and reefs was relatively calm. We had enough wind to push us through at four or five knots despite the tide against us. Lots of pictures were taken as the setting sun made the bridge pillars glow.We drank a celebratory G&T or two.

The next challenge was rounding the island to the south of the bridge and finding our destination in the gathering gloom. We headed off to the south east almost dead downwind picking our way as close to the land as we dared so as to minimise the distance travelled, our destination was on the mainland a little to the north. We were aiming for the marina channel that had been cut through the coral from further south. Tradewind touched the bottom once or twice as we crossed the reef but with the keel and rudder right up we reached the point where according to chart and the GPS the channel turned a sharp right angle east towards the unlit marina enterance and promptly ran around, firmly!

A small motorised dory passed us heading out to sea. It's track was some twenty yards or so north of us. By now the sails were down and the outboard engine on. A quick reverse and we headed towards the path the dory appeared to have taken. Posts appeared in the gloom and the rest of the trip into the marina was without incident. Dominic called Lola, his wife and she with their lovely dog Jingo drove the short distance from their home to collect us both. In the dark the beach resort looked a pretty place surrounded by clipped shrubs. There was one other tiny sailing boat moored up opposite. The tiny marina had a mix of floating and fixed pontoons. Tradewind was loosely tied to a fixed one just under the security post, a little Philippino man came out in his vest and trousers to watch us tie up. No cleets just a couple of rusty rings and some soggy fenders on the rough wooden landing stage. The tidal range in Bahrain is small (less than 1 metre most of the time) but significant when the overall depth is shallow. We could, even in the dark, see the bottom where we were moored. Rudder and keel were left up.

It might have been only eight hours on the water but it felt like a BIG achievement. Dom and I can both now boast to have done something few others have done, sail under the Saudi Causeway!

Sunset, Saturday 12 November 2010

Regatta Time

2010-11-01T19:32:00.000+03:00

Regatta Breakfast at BYC

Not much time to post over the last week or so as it was the BYC's Autumn regatta at the weekend and early on Thursday our first guests to stay with us here in Bahrain, Kevins parents, arrived.

I seem to have been standing in the wrong place when they were looking for a volunteer to organise the Autumn Regatta. For a variety of reasons not worth mentioning here, no one had done much to plan the regatta as I discovered when I returned from the USA in September. The Cruiser Fleet Captain then resigned and I, as the recently appointed Cruiser Fleet Race Officer, somehow found myself organising an event I'd never previously attended, in a club I've been a member of for only a few months. Anyway it went without a hitch although there could have been a tad more wind on Saturday and I'd recommend you don't try leaving it until Wednesday afternoon to order trophies for an event starting on Friday morning. Wednesday I was more than a little stressed but the lovely man in Castelsports is a hero working late to get me trophy printing proofs to approve that night.

With the help of one of the Bahraini members I was put in touch with both of the local English language papers and Bahrain Radio. The main paper GDN ran an ad and an advertorial piece (300 words written by your truely) on the Monday before and a small ad on the front page on the day before. On the first day we got 17 boats on the water, an assortment of IRC and Club Handicap yachts plus some Beach Multihulls (mostly Hobies), about 40 competing crew all told. The club's Sailing Instructors aided by the UK's Naval Attache ran the committee boat for all three races.

Kevin & I's river sailing skills were put to good use in the light winds. The two of us sailed her just like an overgrown Enterprise with a spinnaker, it was hard work and I have a full complement of boat bites on legs and arms to show for my efforts. Having worked out the results afterwards and run the daily prize giving (a bottle of wine for the class winners of each race) I was pleased that Shawa'al the smallest and potentially slowest boat in her class had managed to win three bottles of white wine for sweeping the board in Club Handicap!

When everyone had gone home after the Halloween themed party (DJ on the beach stage, haunted house in the conservatory), I headed home with my laptop and phone. I'd already recorded one radio interview for Bahrain Radio but there were the days results to despatch to the sports editors. I collapsed exhausted into bed pleased that everyone had had a great day, I was too tired to even open one of our prize bottles.

Day two, Saturday, dawned flat calm with little wind in the forecast. The Officer of the Day Ben and myself choose to go the optimistic route of believing the the forecast with the most wind (well you do don't you?). Ben's experience of the week's weather so far was that the wind would build during the morning. I was though a little puzzled by the white fluffy stuff appearing in blobs over head, haven't seen any of that for months here! Was the weather about to undergo a serious change? No it turned out successive days have been hot and sunny.

The AP went up just before the Skippers Briefing at 9am and hung like a wet rag along side the drooping RYA flag on the pole by the swimming pool. Briefing over Kevin, I and the recently arrived outlaw's sat in the club's conservatory eating a late breakfast and joy of joys, watching the ripples in the flag grow stronger. By 11 it became clear we'd have enough beeze to race today's planned triangular course (yesterday's were windward/leeward ones) and by 11:40 the IRC & Club Handicap boats had started and the multihulls were gently sailing up and down the line as they patiently waited for their starting signal. Looking back I think I may have caused some sort of revolution running two five minute start sequences back to back but after all the races everyone seems to have cottoned on to what the flags mean and what order they go up in. Will they remember in six months time for the next regatta?

The first leg was painfully slow, and could hardly be called "racing". Kevin had messed up the start as a big windshift left us the wrong side of the outer distance mark but at last we were on course side and sailing. Three laps later we had been lapped by both the leading boats in our class, all of the IRC fleet and the multihulls but little Shawa'al was still ahead of the remaining four (larger) boats in her class. With one last lap to go Ben came over in the rib to inform us the time limit was imminent. We'd calculated we needed a finish to win the regatta so we stubbornly kept on going, the wind had risen just a little and the boat was making ground against the tide. If it held up we might be able to complete the short course in the last fifteen remaining minutes. Nope, approaching the last gybe mark we heard the horn, times up. Shortly afterwards racing was abandoned for the day, the glassy smooth water testament to the lack of beeze.

Once the boat was tidied up and the big genoa folded away I was back at my laptop calculating results. The IRC and multihull winners were clear but three boats in Club Handicap had 10 points. That meant Shawa'al with her three firsts on Friday was victorious even though we scored a DNF today. One of the large circular crystal plaques I'd rushed around getting done last week was coming home with us, a permanent reminder of all our efforts both on and off the water. Then it was time to shepherd sailors from around the beach bar into some sort of order to get photos taken by Bahrain Confidential magazine and the GDN photographer too.

Being Halloween a pumpkin carving challenge on the beach came next, with various teams competing to create the best looking hollowed out watermelon! Yes watermelon - huge green melons with succulent pink flesh are grown in Saudi and much cheaper than imported pumpkins.

After all that mess and fun the prizegiving. Bottles of wine for Saturday's class winners then third, second and first place trophies for each of the three classes overall. Finally, Dom was awarded a "Conspicous Seamanship" prize for catching the gybe mark around his rudder on the penulitmate lap and having to dive over to free it! All the crews on the prize winning boats received "gold" medals to reward them for their part in their skipper's success too. And I must record my thanks to Joanne and Ben C for the lovely flowers, our apartment smells wonderful.

Then it was time to go home but not to rest...another hour or so's communing with the sports editors to ensure they'd got the overall results and an overview of the days sailing. I was pleased to see two good write ups on Sunday morning of the regatta and amused that neither journalist had been anywhere near the water all weekend!

Election Update

2010-10-25T08:34:00.002+03:00

Saturday's elections here passed with little trouble. Although there was a very obvious police presence, riot protected 4x4s parked, lights flashing on many roadsides on both Friday and Saturday. King Hamad has thanked the Bahraini's for their "national enthusiasm" and "discipline".

The results are all over today's English-language paper the Gulf Daily News - most of the local news articles are related to the election and its outcomes. Not every candidate received a clear 50% of the vote so there will be a second round next weekend in some constituencies. Nine parliamentary seats and 17 municipal ones remain up for grabs.

There will definitely be one female MP Latifa Al Gaoud as she was unopposed in her bid to retain her existing seat but with at least one woman candidate in the second round there could be a historic second female MP after next weeks votes are counted.

On turn out - it is reckoned that 67% of the electorate voted, only slightly higher that the UK 2010 election turnout of 65%. And the posters adn billboards have to be removed within two weeks otherwise the candidate will risk a fine... not certain whether the penalty is 100BHD total (about £180) or 100BHD per poster.

Girlie Things

2010-10-19T09:35:00.001+03:00

Warning: Guys this is not really a post for you, though feel free to read on!

We girlies all know that a good fitting bra is a thing of wonder... your assets feel comfortable and your clothes look good. In recent years one or two UK TV fashion programmes have made it their mission to ensure that every female in the land knows how to get underwear that fits. And for those of us who are well endowed shall we say, department stores have finally woken up to their internet competition (I love figleaves.com) and started stocking pretty pieces in a variety of shapes and colours rather than simply racks of boring black, white or flesh (what a name for something that looks dead!) heavy duty lace or padded cups. The ladies in the lingerie department in Bentalls (Kingston Upon Thames, UK) are lovely, patiently putting up with my attempts to find something to fit under an oddly shaped cocktail dress neckline.

So off I go to Bahrain... here I revel in finding M&S, BHS and Debenhams plus La Senza and a host of other high street lingerie retailers that haven't ever reached the UK. No problem then trying to purchase a smooth garment to wear under fitted white t-shirts? Wrong. First it's a matter of size. Most places seem to think that the maximum size any female chest can be is a 38D. In fact am I alone in thinking that clothes retailers stock as if women larger than size 14 don't exist? A smattering of slightly larger chest sizes with chunky embroidery have made it into the UK high streets favourites mainly as long as you don't mind non-wired, white, black or pillar box red. (I recall buying a scarlet-something that was over 40 inches in M&S as a joke present for a certain Irish friend's 50th :-)). As for cup sizes bigger than D or DD forget it. I look at the pretty blue polka dots or pink flowery things and sigh, even as a teenager plain white or black was all M&S could supply me with.

Yesterday finding myself in Seef Mall for the first time since my extended summer break, I thought I'd try again in my hunt for the perfect little something to wear under a white t-shirt, no-padding (definitely not needed), no chunky embroidery (smooth and seamless please), a snug fit for my embonpoint 34 or 36 F or FF (depending on the brand). I promptly lost all hope when one retailer (Bendon) on finding nothing bigger than a D on their racks, advised to try on a couple of chest sizes up. "Madam we suggest you try a 38D, the extra inches round will give you the fit" Doh!

Election Time

2010-10-16T12:30:00.000+03:00

Bahrain goes to the polls later this month for both municipal and parliamentary elections. As ex-pats who don't own property we are not permitted to vote. However interest piqued by the posters going up all over town with huge mug shots of the candidates I decided to find out what's what.

Democracy is young on this island with the first elections in 2002, anouther round in 2006 and now four years later the Bahraini's are about to have their third voting experience. There was an earlier short lived attempt at democracy in 1973 but that body was dissolved two years later. I won't dwell on politics just mechanics in this blog, virtually everything is conducted in Arabic so I have no idea who is standing for what, only what they look like. I will say though that just like anywhere else in the world the candiates through their poster images try to portray themselves as genial neighbours.

There are five municipal councils known as governates in Bahrain; Northern, Southern, Capital, Central and Muharraq. To stand for election to these or to parliament you must be over thirty and to vote you must be over twenty. Parliament has two houses much like the UK model where only the lower house is elected and the upper house is made of appointed senior, experienced members of society. In theory the upper house is meant to only advise but in practise they apparently have legislative powers too. Voters first had to verify themselves to get on the electoral list either in person or electronically, just over 300,000 inidividuals were approved. This was done in August. It is possible to oppose someones entry in the electoral roll here and 206 such appeals were dealt with!

Then during September, the candidates submitted their applications to stand for election in the respective bodies, some were unopposed so automatically took their seats. This seemingly smooth and rapid process has not been without its troubles as press headlines during September showed (London, Jerusalem, Bahrain). The Election Committee issued a press release stating that despite unrest due to the "dismantling of a terrorist plot" the elections were on track. Election day itself is October 23 with a second round of parliamentary elections seven days later. It may be viewed as an imperfect democracy by some but at least the people of Bahrain have an opportunity to vote and it will be interesting to see what percentage of them do so compared with the lacklustre poll turnouts in some western countries.

Almost Perfect Sailing...

2010-10-16T08:41:00.000+03:00

Life is returning to the outdoors with a vengence. As mentioned earlier its getting cooler with temperatures a more acceptable 35 degrees or so, a predominately north-west or northerly wind seems to have set in. This moderate breeze brings a welcome chilling effect across a wet body so every effort is being made to get wet! On Monday morning Inge and I hired two Pico's from the yacht club and set out without any real destination in mind. We reached across to the red porthand mark opposite the entrance to the marina then back slightly more north to the coastguard base and as the wind freed us off more, north again to the tiny island resort of Al Dar. A deft raising of dagger boards saw us across the buoyed rope marking their swimming area and on to the sandy beach, surprising perhaps one of the workers who wandered across and offered us water (we'd brought our own). It'a monday morning of pleasure we intend to repeat!

This weekend I've had my first BBQ of the season, at Inge & Fred's in the Floating City, Amwaj where it was lovely to be able to sit outside once more, the hot humid evenings of September well behind us. Amwaj is a little isolated located as it is north of Muharraq and Manama, but their lovely villa with a saltwater canal at the bottom of the tiny garden is a gorgeous setting for entertaining.

Then yesterday, a sailing trip to Bird Island (last visited on that fateful stormy trip in early May) aboard D'Artagnan with Skipper Ben and Mar. Once there we girls had a lovely swim off the boat and it was great to be able to laze around in the cockpit cooling as we dried. Though we thought we might have lost Mar at one point, she'd snorkled her way to the island and was sitting on the sand hidden behind another boat at anchor! Thanks for a great day out Ben! The sailing could not have been better (except perhaps by being in a boat of my own) - downwind to South Pole then a reach across to the island. A few hours later as a the sun set in a mass of orange dust haze we reached back to the pole and then beat in gusty conditions north to the YC through a stream of dhows heading out to fish. As in the Solent the wind had only a short fetch so the sea was relatively flat, novice sailor Mar had a wide smile on her face as she helmed. Warm breeze, glorious sunset, great sailing - a perfect end to the day.

Plans are being made for longer sailing trips to Hawar 30 nm or so south of the yacht club or if you have a small enough airdraft, possibly right around Bahrain over the forthcoming Eid Al Adha holiday in November. To get under the Saudi Causeway bridge you need less than 15 metres height from the waterline to the top of the mast. Shawa'al may be fine but with our first visitors arriving a week or so before we probably will limit ourselves to trips around the bay or possibly as far north as Amwaj.

If you are wondering where hubby is this weekend - he's speaking at a conference in wet and windy Rhodes suffering the consequences of forgetting to take a coat!

Autumn in the Desert

2010-10-12T08:53:00.001+03:00

Bahrain's daytime temperatures are finally dropping to a more comfortable 35 - 37 degrees centigrade after a summer of record heat. In June we had the hottest June temperature recorded and on a Tuesday in mid July the peak temperature of 47.4C equalled the hottest day in Bahrain's recorded history. The last time temperatures in Bahrain reached that was in July 2000 and, before that, all the way back in 1902. Coincidently the day after, I left the island for the damp of a UK summer, returning to the heat only in mid September.

HW Juffair - 8:30 am Oct 2010

With the cooling beezes and lower humidity outdoor life can begin again. Sailing becomes comfortable; racing is fun in a cooling breeze not a slog under the blazing sun, cruises to various local reefs to swim and socialise become an atttractive proposition. On land BBQs and camping in the desert are delights to look forward to.

Being just after the Autumn Equinox, the spring tides are much higher than usual and it has been amusing to see that land recently reclaimed from the sea in Juffair has been partially flooded most mornings. The tidal differences here are not huge when compared to say the English Channel or the Severn Estuary but, given the low level of the island itself, are significant. Currently a few days after the full moon, high water predictions are for around 2.6m and low water just 0.4m a difference of over 2.5m (about the same as the Solent at Neaps) whereas often the difference is only a single metre.

A moderate north westerly wind has been blowing almost continually for the past few weeks piling these higher tides onto the northern shore of Juffair surrounding the boats on the beach. You can see in the picture above that sea water has also emerged up through the most newly reclaimed ground further along to form sizeable puddles, an unusual sight in a land where it hasn't rained since the spring. To see just how much land has been reclaimed over the summer compare the view above with the one below from March:


Land reclamation progress: Compare shoreline in this photo taken in March 2010 with now

Getting About (or how to acquire seven different maps for free but still need a taxi)

2010-10-04T21:54:00.000+03:00

So you arrive in Dubai and discover your hotel is close to the brand spanking new Metro system - brilliant! Well not quite, but more of that later. First challenge was finding out about fares, locations and times - a quick web search throws up www.dubaimetro.eu This has lots of facts about the new system and a great up to date map showing which stations are open but nothing practical like fares and timetables. A bit more searching uncovered the Roads and Transports Authority - bingo everything you need to know about the different levels of travel card Silver, Gold and Red and a journey planner too.

If you've travelled in London then Silver is familiar, like the Oyster card you top it up, get slightly reduced fares and it works on the buses as well as the Metro. Gold simply gives you access to better Metro seating for slightly higher cost. Red is recommended for tourists but having read the small print it only works on the Metro and has full price fares so Silver would be my card of choice, especially if you intend to visit Dubai more than once as its valid for 5 years.

Not all the stations are open including the nearest one to the Radisson Internet City. This is Nakheel, named for one of the major property developers in Dubai, responsible for the Palm Islands (Nakheel means palm) and the Dubai World projects amongst other. Asking at hotel reception (and acquiring an alternative "better" map to the one they gave me yesterday in the process) I was told it was possible to walk to Dubai Marina station but not to Dubai Internet City. Later on my way back I discovered why; the road disappears into an underpass leaving anyone on foot stranded! I set off for the former, the distinctive armadillo shape of the elevated stations is not too difficult to spot even in the forest of tower blocks is it? Except I found myself the wrong side of a wrought iron fence to Nakheel. Taxi! Ten dirhams later I was at an open metro station. The silver card costs twenty dirhams (about £3.40) and gives you an initial 14 dirhams credit for travel, after that anything you top up will be credited for travel. Just a few dirhams will take you anywhere within a zone.

The driverless train was clean (no food or drink are allowed, fine about £20) and very new. Until it reached the Emirates Mall station there were few passengers. By the time we reached central Dubai 15 or 20 minutes later it was standing room only. A man in a white dishdahsa checked my ticket by placing it on a handheld which beeped briefly and he handed it back with a smile.

Somewhere the train dived underground presumably heading down to tunnel under the creek. And when I emerged into the sunshine at street level I was right by the Burjuman shopping mall. Lunch called and my latest discovery "Dome" was beckoning just inside. Homemade veggie lasagne with salad, french bread & a Sprite cost 33.50 dirhams (under six pounds). My goal was the Bastakia, a historical distrct of Dubai, but which direction? The Metro's own map showed detailed streets up to 400 m or so around the station with little dots marking points in interest like leisure facilities, major buildings etc but no identifying names for these. My maps didn't have the Metro on it but did show the district. After asking both the shopping centre information and the tourist info desks (maps 3 - 5) the answer from both was unanimous; "Get a taxi". Outside no taxi's in sight but the Big Bus Tour Co gave me their map (no. 6)!.

By now it was hot and the souk probably shut until nightfall so I changed plans, retracing my steps a bit to hunt down Waitrose in the Dubai Mall instead. Here the Metro station was predictably, some distance from the Mall so I spent another ten dirhams on a taxi fare. I later discovered this is the minumum charge.

Starting to head back to my hotel a couple of hours later clutching my bottle of pink grapefruit hi-juice squash like an addict (I haven't had any since July), I discovered (acquiring map 7 in the process) the number 13 bus. This can be boarded unerneath the mall and circumnavigates the whole complex giving wonderful views of the Burj Khalifa as it tours the surrounding building sites, ending up at the Metro station. And I paid the fare using my new silver card! Another few stops on the Metro and a minimum fare taxi ride brought me to the hotel door, this last leg was the bit where I found it's impossible to be a pedestrian in Dubai, forced by an multi-lane underpass to hail a taxi for a two minute ride.

I have definitely cracked travelling here. Its not on foot but I will need some time to work out which of the maps of the city I picked up along the way I should use when I get off the train!

Trendy Interior Decor Dubai Style

2010-10-03T14:06:00.004+03:00

Bedroom Art - note the jeans pocket!

Our room here at the Radisson Internet City is more than a little bemusing starting with the light switches (see picture further down) and progressing rapidly into the bathroom. Here the sink is a large ceramic rectangle with a shallow dip in the middle, the central "plug" is directly below the wall mounted tap. Whether up or down the curved plug acts just like a spoon under a kitchen tap to ensure that the unwary get a thorough soaking!

As for those taps I can't fathom them; over the sink both turn anticlockwise for "on". Do that in the shower and you are likely to scald or freeze yourself as they turn opposite ways to each other! And, in case you manage to figure that out with your eyes shut to avoid getting soap in them, there is an additional middle tap which redirects the water from the ceiling wateringcan-style rose to a handheld jet mounted above easy reach that directs the scalding water so it bounces horizontally into your ear!

As for the rest of the decor and "features".. the pictures speak for themselves!

Towel Rail for Giants - the only place provided to hang them

Fish Tank feature in corner of shower or how to wake your sleeping partner

Just how complex can you make a light switch?
This is one of two such arrays

What's wrong with a cardboard doorknob hanger?

And finally...Bathroom Art above the loo of course

First Impressions

2010-10-03T08:47:00.002+03:00

Dubai is big! Seven lane highways (that is 7 in each direction), veritable forests of skyscrapers and a huge aquarium complete with diving members of the public in the shopping mall. Dubai is either side of a creek, the airport is to the north but most of the modern city is to the south west of the creek along the beach.

Getting through immigration took over an hour, long slow moving queues but no issues for a UK citizen; cursory questions about why you are there and where you are staying, passport flicked through and stamped. Then it was off to meet Kevin's colleague Johan for a drive around. First to the Palm to visit another Norwegian and view his apartment. The trunk of the Palm is formed by two rows of concrete apartment blocks with a major road through the middle. Villas make up the Palm fronds and a huge hotel complex stands at the apex. We were quite taken by the pools in the gardens below the apartment blocks, views of the islands and the direct access to the beach but it seems there are few everyday shops here and the only way off is by car.

Huge Acrylic Tank Wall

Next stop Dubai Marina, our first forest of skyscrapers; towers of glass clustered around canals and pontoons, building is still going on apace here. There is a yacht club here, however most of the boats we saw were of the large motor kind. Not so certain I'd want a view of another tower block directly across from my apartment nor the construction noise. We've also been warned that in the boom years wealthy property speculators bought up hundreds of flats which they now can not resell or rent out, and therefore don't pay their maintenance bills so some blocks are poorly maintained.

Just a little further on is the more mature Jumirah Beach Residence (JBR). This is Villamoura with tower blocks! Low level buildings in the Arabic style are home to shops and cafes just across the road from hotels lining the beach. Behind the shops are huge ochre blocks of high rise apartments. Lots of trees and bougainvillea make this area very attractive but the traffic along the single road parallel with the sea was one long crawl.

A few kilometres inland is Arabian Ranches, several thousand identikit villas arranged in huge loops each backing onto a canal. Johan and his wife showed us around their lovely home. It was larger than the Amwaj Floating City villas in Bharain but lacking in access to the water, no swimming or boating in the freshwater canals. A great place if you've got a family or want peace and quiet but few amenities beyond golf courses and communal pools. Though if you like riding it is close to the gorgeous, upmarket Polo Club where we had lunch. Back towards the sea but just inland from JBR is the Emirates housing area: Lakes, Springs, Meadows complete with golf course views and, except for Springs, huge price tags. This is where the millionaires have their villas. Springs is another extensive development of identical villas and made it onto my short list of potential places to live, the others are Dubai Marina and JBR. If we come here we'd had to choose with care to avoid construction, traffic jams and lack of amenities.

Divers Feeding

The hotel - well I'll take some pictures later this week and you can judge for yourself! Trendy but impractical is how I'd sum it up. In the evening Kevin took me to the Dubai Mall, not to see the shops but to view the beautiful fountain show and to eat in one of the restaurants in Souk Al Bahar next door. The acrylic aquarium wall (see picture above) is the largest single stretch of the material in the world, it holds back 10 million litres of water full of fish and sharks plus a few divers! We joined the crowds taking pictures. This is the area for world records, the mall it self, the aquarium wall and outside, the Burj Khalifa which at 828m is the worlds tallest building. At night on the other side of the lake to the Mall it is an amazing sight rising into the blackness of the sky. One or two stars twinkled seemingly just above its summit. But for oohs and ahhs then the half hourly evening fountain displays are a must not miss; music, lights and explosive jets of water swaying seductively in time to Sarah Brightmans voice and an ochestral accompaniment - breathtaking! (Pictures below - I stopped taking them to watch so you won't see the most spectactular parts unless you come in person!)

Circles of water...

...are joined by lines and lights

The water sways seductively

Relocation, relocation...

2010-09-29T07:24:00.000+03:00

It seems we may well be on the move again. Dell's Middle Eastern HQ is in Dubai and hubby's newly acquired knowledge from our Texas trip is mostly required there, plus he's temporarily picked up the management of a mega-project in the Emirates.

I know little of Dubai except that size seems ot matter! Apart from being the most populous of the Emirates, the state is the home of the world's tallest building and the world's largest shopping mall. More relevant, there are several yacht clubs and a huge marina development plus a very large ex-pat community.

The currency is the dirham (AED) and apparently the coins have only Arabic numerals on them, all that practise with number plates here in Bahrain may just have been worth it. There is approximately 5.75AED to the UK pound or put another way 1 dirham is just over 17p, sounds like I better practise my seventeen times table. For my Bahraini readers 1 BHD is around 9.75 AED which makes for slightly easier maths when in the supermarket (divide by ten), both currencies are pegged to the US dollar.

At least it's not so far to transport ourselves being only about 300 miles or so away from Bahrain as the crow flies. So how to relocate? Here's my plan so far:

Step 1: Find somewhere to live - a quick web search throws up hundreds of apartments and villas for rent, there is apparently a surplus so we can hope for a good deal of around 150K AED per annum (you can do the maths). Rent appears to paid annually in a number of cheques, no idea how that works but I'll let you know when I do. And the tenant pays the agency fees - wierd - as well as a small deposit.
Dell's office is close to Dubai Marina. Jumirah Beach is slightly further along the coast (south?) but offers seaviews. Then there is Emirate Hills, billed as the Holywood of Dubai, just inland with views over lakes and the green grass of the golf course(s), I could do green views but can we afford them!
We know our requirements and preferences - car parking, integrated air con, minimum of 2 bedrooms, swimming pool, gym and if possible a seaview. The problem will be identifying fully furnished apartments to our taste from a distance as few of the web sites have interior pictures. So I am heading there on Saturday for a week to scout around whilst Kevin is working.
Step 2: If the move is definite we will need to ship our personal effects again, groan. Gulf Agencies acted locally for our UK shippers and were great when we moved to Bahrain, collecting our stuff at the docks, arranging painlessly the customs clearance, delivering to the door and unpacking. So will ask them for advice on Dubai's import regulations, how long it takes (possibly it will go by road via Saudi not sea?) and importantly for a quote.

It will be sad to leave our new friends in Bahrain and to have to sell Shawa'al but there's an exciting new adventure in prospect with new places to explore, new friends to meet. As Dubai is only a short hour and a quarter hop by plane we can always come back to the island for holidays!

Gulf Widow

2010-09-26T08:42:00.001+03:00

This is it the weekend is over and a week on my own as a "Gulf Widow" to come. There are plenty of these in Bahrain, expats who prefer the lifestyle here to living in a compund in Saudi. The wife and kids live and go to school here whilst hubby works over the border in one of the Saudi cities nearby returning home on a Wednesday evening for the weekend.

I can't complain as most weeks Kevin is home for 3 or 4 evenings with occasional overnight stays in Kuwait, Dubai or elsewhere in the region. This week however he is working at regional HQ in Dubai all week so I have to occupy myself until Thursday evening. Dropped him off at dawn at the airport. Drove back home past hordes of locals out jogging or walking in the "cool" of the morning round the shore at Hidd. It was already more than 30 degrees and so humid my glasses steamed up as the car door was opened!

Plenty to do though - usual housework stuff like the laundry plus we are off to celebrate the passing of summer with Oktober Fest at the Gulf Hotel on Thursday evening so I need a Dirndl. Pattern ideas are relatively easy to come by on the web but suitable fabric may be harder... we'll see. Need some cotton preferably in a pastel shade either plain or with a small sparse spriggy print for the skirt.

Must also try to track down a missing pillow case and get the dishwasher fixed. The former probably went AWOL when hubby laundered the bedding in my absence over the summer; we use the downstairs machines for this as the washer drier in the apartment is full with a couple of pairs of trousers and a handful of undies, so will interrogate the staff.

The dishwasher basically doesn't and ends the cycle with an "E3" error which the book of instructions says is failure to reach temperature. In the past few days we've had several visits from building maintenance but no one has actually been near the machine as they've not got the parts and or the dishwasher repair man.

Jet Lagged and Mouldy

2010-09-20T18:02:00.001+03:00

Landed in Bahrain before 5am this morning, some 50 minutes earlier than scheduled after a very fast trip from LHR. Thx for looking after us so nicely Gulf Air - edible food (in fact I'd go so far as to say the lamb dish was yummy, lots of cinamon and fall-apart tender), hot coffee, wine and cosy, fleece blankets plus smiling, happy staff who want to make your flight as pleasant as possible - such a contrast to Saturday nights flight with grumpy Continental. And no excess baggage charges (again unlike Contintental) despite two heavy suitcases, two solar panels (taped to become one box) and four albeit small, carry on bags. We've definitely joined the long haul crowd.

An impromptu car hire at the airport got us home and to the super market, though Kevin later organised a longer term rental starting tomorrow with a Saudi permit. At 5am Elite's airport branch (2 men in a tiny cubicle) were in rent-a-wreck mode but it's got wheels so will do until tomorrow. We probably won't even go to the garage to put some much needed air in the tyres and certainly won't be cleaning the ashtray out.

When we left the terminal building, bleary eyed, the humidity hit us. It was the same temperature as an Austin afternoon but almost foggy, instantly everything was damp. A quick drive back to the flat. Everything in the living room was a bit disordered, the rug rolled up. We soon discovered why. During our lengthy absence the humidity had brought mould to our un-aired flat despite the fact that the aircon and extractor fans were left on. Oddly only the living room and kitchen have been invaded.

The Belvedere staff had fought the mould as best they were able at intervals over the past few weeks, apparently serveral flats, even occupied ones are suffering due to the high humidity. I wiped down photo frames,shelves and ornaments, then threw away the t-bags and the coffee. The latter was a solid block in the jar and the former green - yuk! Someone spirited away my collection of cork and woven table mats whilst we were at the supermarket at lunchtime... presumably to give them a scrub as they'd all grown fur coats. Even the iron in a kitchen cupboard was looking a little fluffy. Will have another go tomorrow and take all the books off the shelves etc. Too tired to worry too much more about it today.

Having flown on three airplanes since Saturday lunchtime and now 8 hours ahead of Texas my brain wants to sleep and my stomache thinks its breakfast. We did sleep on the long haul legs but it obviously wasn't enough. Feel like I've just finished a Fastnet and been partying all night!

Have stepped on the scales...was dreading this as waistbands were feeling a more than a little tight in recent days. Despite a month of eating out Texas style (ie obscene amounts of food) I seem to have only put on a couple of kilos. Not certain why my clothes therefore feel so tight! September resolution: eat less and exercise more for the next month or so. Started with a few laps round the rooftop pool this afternoon then feel asleep on the sun lounger. The Bahrain Mall fitness programme sounds like a great idea, circuit training before the shops open in the cool of the air-conditioning, and its free! Meanwhile there's the pool, the treadmill and the exercise bikes upstairs to keep me occupied until Wednesday morning if I can stay awake.

Waitron Rant...

2010-09-16T19:48:00.001+03:00

Rant On: There is one aspect of Texan life that is driving me mad, and has probably been accentuated as living in a hotel for the past month, we eat out for every meal... the waiters/waitresses/waitrons in virtually every establishment we've been to.

I have sort of come to accept the "Welcome, I am *****, your server for this morning/afternoon/evening" delivered as if they are a bosom friend. However if one more places the bill/check on the table with the words "I'm putting this here but you don't need to hurry" before I've even made any inroads into my meal I not sure I can be held responsible for my actions.

Then there is my other bugbear; almost everywhere, even in the poshest of eateries, a member of staff will start clearing your table BEFORE everyone has finished eating, leaving those still eating feeling guilty that they are slower than the rest of the party. Don't they teach these kids any manners?

Eating a meal should be a relaxed, enjoyable process offering the chance for talking and savouring the food and not interupted by multiple checks that everything is ok, making space to place the folder containing the bill or clearing the empty plates.

And when you need a service like more coffee, water or another bottle of wine, guess what there is often no one around to come to your table! I'm beginning to think they should be termed automatons not waitrons!

Rant Off

Sundays Texas Style

2010-09-13T21:01:00.000+03:00

Sundays in Texas are Brunch Days and here in Austin that means for a lot of people, Threadgill's on Riverside Drive just south of the Colorado River. A huge buffet offers cooked to order omlettes, fresh fruit, pancakes (more like the Scotch variety than the French crepe), maple syrup to put on them, bacon, sausage (think burger style patties not the British Banger), fried potatoes, creamed corn, muffins and eggs in varying forms. Add to that fresh orange juice and endless coffee and you probably don't need to eat for a week! Total bill just over $30 for two.

The place was packed and it being late Sunday morning a band was playing country and western style gospel tunes. Families, couples and groups of friends looking for hangover cures queued for tables. The staff were friendly and laid back. I spied one older couple sipping margeritas long before the sun was over the yard arm!

Once we'd paid the bill we headed out of Austin for a bit of recreation at Pedernales State Park 30 miles or so away. We definitely wanted to see the falls in spate but also hoped that despite the huge amounts of rain that fell last week as Tropical Storm Hermine passed over Austin, we'd be able to swim. Muddy water was running hard over the falls but not as much as there had been a day or two earlier: See these piccies on Facebook. The falls aren't one big drop but more a series of undulations in the rock strata like large weirs and there was a fair amount of water roaring over them. It was a cloudless midday with temperatures in the high 90's F or around 35C so after the walk down and a short stroll over the rocks to the lowest part we were too exhuasted to do much more than climb back up the steps and path to shade and aircon of the car.

A little drive back through the park brought us to the swimming area car park. We drank all the water we had then headed down the valley once again towards the river. There are several miles of swimming area but we simply changed into our cossies at the first unoccupied piece of shade under the nearest tree, spreading our sweat-soaked shirts out on a branch to dry out! Typical of any old river bend there were cliffs on the far side and a tree lined beach on our side. The river was running hard, being mud coloured it was difficult to spot underwater objects and keep a grip on something stable. But the best fun was to allow yourself to be swept downstream, avoiding the larger obstacles of course, then stand up in the knee deep water and wade back to repeat the process. One mum (or mom) was releasing her two young boys in turn to "swim" to daddy standing 50 yards or so downstream - much better than a day at a water park!

The water wasn't chilly and combined with a light breeze and a few clouds Kevin & I soon recovered from the heat of our falls walk. We stayed mostly submerged in the water like a pair of hippos for a good couple of hours occasionally trying to make for the rocks on the further bank with greater or lesser degrees of sucess. If you got there your reward was that is was much easier to wallow in the calmer waters behind a rocky outcrop without having to cling on.

The riverside beach was empty of people, everyone was sitting or lying in the water in small groups scattered down the river. And as usual for Texas it wasn't long before we were being chatted to. One sun-hatted group lazed in the water drinking from ostentiously large plastic beakers ("it is an offense for any person to consume or display an alcoholic beverage in a public place"), another individual was snorkling though even he had to admit that he couldn't see anything! An elderly Indian gentleman beat his grand-kids into the water and a middle aged couple found a pleasant spot in a nook in a large mid river rock, in the sun and breeze but out of the stream, just room for two.

I doubt you'd want to spend so much time in any UK river, even in the middle of summer the Dart in Devon is bone chillingly cold. There are plenty of good things about the Texan way of life and its been a privilege and a pleasure to enjoy some of them over the past few weeks.

PS: In case you are in any doubt about the power of a river in flood here is a photo I took on Friday in the small town of Salado north of Austin.

Barton Springs after the storm (Scott Cassady/KXAN)

Or compare this photo of Barton Springs swimming hole from the local news station KXAN's website (spot the life guard chairs)....

with this one I took just a couple of days earlier when we were there swimming!

Saturday Nights In Austin

2010-09-12T18:31:00.000+03:00

10:00am Sunday and we've just woken up after what could be our last sample of the nightlife here in Austin, self proclaimed capital of live music. My ears are still ringing!

Last night four of us managed to listen to three good to mediocore bluesy rock bands as well has fit in a couple of games of pool between setting out from our hotel at 20:30 and bar closing time at 2am. Needless to say a quantity of alcohol was consumed but as the glasses are first filled with ice, as there is no control over the measures and once its diluted by coke or tonic there really isn't a deal of rum or gin in the content. Oh and supper was from a bratworst (spelling?) stand.

Having read the music section of our guide book one of our foursome, Jason wanted to search out the 311 Club. We missed it on our first prowl down the street last night but having crossed the road found it was the place we'd already visited on at least two previous occasions! One of our favourite bands was on stage as always. Two elderly afro-caribbean gentlemen playing laconically anything the punters request, a mexican guy complete with droopy moustache on lead guitar and a middle aged female who really belts out rock classics all supported by a similarly aged drummer and a slightly younger tall bass player.

Last night was the first match for the Texas Longhorns and shortly after the event finished the bars turned burnt orange. It seemed everyone but us was wearing the team colour - t-shirts, shirts, blouses, dresses, even hair ties. The 311 Club was fairly empty when we first sat down at what we consider now to be our table. Turning round an hour or so later the place was packed, impossible to see the door. The dance floor in front of the stage soon filled up to and the ladies restroom was a place only the desperate visit. As the musicians played their way through a now familiar order of tunes it was time to go and try shuffleboard further along the road.

Both the shuffle board (a fifteen or twenty foot plank of wood, covered in sand with pucks like miniture curling stones) and darts were fully occupied by orange clad players so Kevin & I challenged Jason & Brian to a game of pool. Four people representing three different continents meant we first had to settle on the rules to play by! All too soon we were being asked to finish our game. It was time to go home to bed. Where did the evening go?

A Shortish History of Texas

2010-09-07T17:38:00.002+03:00

Everything is big in Texas starting with the land itself which covers just under 269,000 sq miles so what follows is as short a history as you are liable to find! Before I arrived here my knowledge was based on a handful of alltime classic films...

Long before the Europeans arrived various tribes of Native Americans occupied the land known today as Texas. Some were indigenous, some passed through, the Apaches arrived from further north. From Spaniard's Cabeza de Vaca arrival in 1528, the ultimate outcome for the native tribes was not a pleasant one; wiped out by European diseases or assimulated into Mexican or Spanish populations. The coast was first mapped by Europeans around 1519 but de Vaca was shipwrecked and spent 7 years wandering through the land living with the local natives and documenting his unintentional tour. By the late 17th century the Spaniards had worked out that their new land did not have the gold or silver they sought and the harsh landscape didn't incentivise them sufficiently to leave the comfort of Mexico City.

The French were the next to arrive, mistakenly. La Salle believed he was landing in Louisianna but was in fact a few hundred miles further west, not far from present day Corpus Christi. Once the Spanish heard the French had set up a colony they renewed their interest so sent Captain Alonso de Leon to confront the enemy and reclaim the region for the Spanish crown. de Leon found the colony decimated by Indians and La Salle murdered by his own men. Spain ruled the land once more.

For the next hundred and fifty years or so the Spanish under the guise of converting everyone to Catholicism protected the lands from any other European invasion. The mission was largely unsucessful, most of the indigenous people succumbed to epidemics. By the start of the 19th century the first Anglo-Americans settlers began to cross the border. And in the early days of the Mexican republic twenty or thirty years later Texas was sparsely populated with just three towns and around 2,500 people. The Mexicans inherited a failed colony, the mssion stations had though contributed the notion of ranching to the future state. Thousands of cattle and horses now roamed the pastures and praires across central and southern Texas. These later gave rise the huge cattle drives after the Civil War which were managed by "vaqueros" or cowboys giving rise to one part of the quintessential culture of Texas. Meanwhile Comanche, Apache and other hostile tribes ruled more than the government in Mexico City.

In 1821 the Mexican government gave American Moses Austin a contract to establish a colony with 300 families. His son Stephen F., the founder of modern Texas, took over the task on his fathers death. Just fourteen years later there were 21 towns and twenty thousand or so Anglo-American immigrants. Santa Anna was by now in charge back in Mexico City moving from democracy to dictatorship, along the way he abolished the state goverment of Coahuila and Zacatecas (Texas). The latter rebelled and Santa Anna's forces invaded, defeating the opposition then raping and murdering thousands of local citizens.

The Texians (the Anglo-Americans) and the Tejanos (the original hispanic settlers) decided it was time to leave the Mexican state. In October 1835 at Gonzales on the Guadaloupe River they challenged the Mexicans to "Come and Take It" - "It" being a small cannon given to them by the Mexican army to defend the settlement against Native Indians. The defiant banner was central to face off with between the local populace and 100 Mexican dragoons. The Texians fired their cannon and charged, the Mexicans withdrew with two fatailities. This small skirmish was the start of a lengthy, bloody revolution. At San Antonio in early December the untrained but eager Texians forced the Mexicans to surrender and then allowed General Cos, Santa Anna's brother-in-law to withdraw back to Mexico. Afterwards most of the Texas volunteers went home leaving around 100 in Alamo.

The Texas Army existed with Sam Houston as commander in chief, but had no regular soldiers, only the volunteers who hadn't returned to their lands. Early 1836 Santa Anna crossed the Rio Grande with 4000 troops as well as cavalry and artillery to punish the wayward Texians. Sam Houston gave orders to abandon Alamo. Believing that the fort could be defended with cannon captured from the Mexicans Willam Travis and David Crockett (who came from Tennessee with extra men) overruled Sam Houston. By late February the sick Bowie who'd been elected commander by the men ceded to Travis as Santa Anna's army began their siege. Thirteen days later Santa Anna overwhelmed the fort, 182 defenders and over 600 Mexicans were dead including Travis, Crockett and Bowie, the latter shot on his sick bed in the chapel. However this defeat inspired the rest of Texas. Santa Anna had one further victory at Goliad where 400 men left it too late to abandon their fort and found themselves surrounded by the Mexicans just 6 miles later. All were marched back and executed under the Dictator's orders on Palm Sunday, March 27 1836.

One month later Santa Anna had victory in his sights, the remenants of the Texian Army and the Mexicans faced one another over the priarie at the San Jacinto river, more than 1300 Mexicans to almost 900 Texians. The Dictator decided to let his brother-in-law General Cos' troops rest before commencing the battle. Sam Houston had other ideas so around 3pm on April 21 lined out across the land during the Mexicans' siesta. Eighteen minutes later the battle was over although the slaughter of Mexicans by Texians wanting revenge for the Alamo and Goliad went on into the night.Santa Anna was captured the following day and forced to sign a treaty that meant retreat to the other side of the Rio Grande. The land of Texas was now a republic, Sam Houston was elected its first president. It was officially recognised as such in 1837 by the USA and later by some European countries including France.

In 1838 newly elected president, Mirabeau Lamar (a buffalo hunter) hated Sam Houston and decided that Houston was not the place for the capital so set about creating one from scratch. Austin was laid out in 1839 close to the Colorado river. The original 200 inhabitants had to put up with raiding Comanche so despite the buffalo and their log cabins, it was a dangerous place to live. By 1841 Houston was again president. He preferred living peacefully side by side with the natives so wanted to move the capital back to Houston. He knew the Austinites would not be keen so he devised a plan to sneak into the city at night without waking the residents, load up the archives on a couple of wagons and take them back to Houston. The plan was foiled when one Angelina Eberly, owner of the Bullock Hotel heard them and on realising what was going on fired the cannon normally reserved for protection against the Comanche. Almost the entire city rode out after the Rangers to retrieve the documents, establishing Austin as the capital of the Lone Star Republic (the original Mexican state of Coahuila and Zacatecas had had two stars on its flag, Texas took one of these).

At the very beginning of the republic the voters were in favour of annexation but the USA initially turned the request down. Houston needed cash so he courted both British and French investors which the USA was not comfortable with leading to annexation in 1845. The dissolution of the republic incidently sparked a new war with Mexico. During the 1850s the population almost doubled with immigration from Germany bringing beer brewing and sausages to the state and through the importation of slaves who came with settlers from the southern states, until then slavery hadn't been common in Texas. With the Civil War in 1861, Texas left the Union and joined the Confederates though most of the battles were outside of the state.

The face of the land changed rapidly over this period with the advent of the railway and the rise of ranching. Land barons, businesses and money poured into the state, cities grew from the small settlements. Late in the 19th century the government raised funds for a state capitol building in Austin by selling land in the Pan Handle (the north of the state) to Anglo-Americans for ranching. The imposing capitol, taller that then one in Washington was not without controversy - strikes over the use of imported labour resulted in convicts being used/ And the insistence of the state fathers that local stone should be used meant the original design for an ornate limestone edifice could not be executed as the local stone was not of good enough quality. Eventually red marble from nearby Marble Falls was donated and much of the planned ornamentation dropped but the building is as impressive today as it was when it was built providing grand views from all over the city.

Oil had been discovered in the late 1800's but not much, then in 1901, a drilling site exploded with a gusher and suddenly the oil boom was on. Just a few years before, further north, Henry Ford had produced his first car so Texas became rich, schools were built, roads surfaced and homes sprang up everywhere. With the stock market crash in 1929 Texan progress screeched to a halt and the state became part of the dust bowl - severe drought, poverty and agricultural decline marked many of the years ahead. But eventually Texas bounced back, during the second world war the military established several major bases here leading to a rise in federal government spending locally as well as manufacturing. Gradually the impoverished state recovered to become what it is today a major oil producer, home to top military bases with ranching as an important sideline - beef, peaches and more are farmed.