Worth a Read

Ment to add this on the end of my last blog, it's another blog of a frien from here which is pretty funny and goes to explain my job very well. The last paragraph is the best.

http://www.muelcolvin.com/hole-drilling-thing

Seasick Dave

Weekend out #2: Fishing

After the excitement of the camel race we decided it was time we did something gentlemanly and relaxing. Stu had heard there was some good fishing to be had off the coast so off we headed off to find one of the many day fishing boats out instructor promised us would be fighting for our custom in Abu Dhabi Marina.

After two hours of wandering around in 30 degree heat we had found only one bloke that cost 3600D for 4 hours but was out an a trip any way so couldn't take us. It was fair to say that moral was low so I decided to try the marine sports building. I casually wondered into the building and found a helpful looking block to ask where we could go to find fishing. As he chatted to a colleague I took in my surroundings, apparently I had wandered into the middle of an office but nobody seemed to mind so I carried on like I was supposed to be there. The helpful man did point me in the direction of some ramshackle cafe where we bumped into a guy we named Tony (or something) who was up for taking us out.

We decided to go to the store to stock up on water as it was roasting and Tony went off for prayer so we met up half hour late and jumped on Tony's boat. It was fantastic, the sun was shining the water was crystal clear and the giant flag on the mosque not moving an inch so we powered off into the distance. Dave was steadily working through the 3 litres of power aid he bought insisting we could sweat out 1/4 our body weight on a day like this when the horizon suddenly developed a line of clouds. When we asked our local fishing guide what the weather forecast was for the day it turned out he had no idea so we assumed it would be ok and carried on. By the time we dropped our first hook over the side it was pretty damn windy. Like proper windy - even for me. This meant that the moment I dropped the line over the side (the wrong side) it got wrapped around the prop. Tony spent the next 15 minutes hanging off the back trying to untangle us as the boat lurched about making Dave feel seasick - Quote "is it best to throw up?"

After untangling the fishing gear Tony had had enough so we motored back to shelter - totally soaking us when the bow buried itself in a wave sending a wall of water completely over the top of the boat straight onto Dave. The next 3 hours were spent catching hypothermia while drifting gradually down the coastline of Abu Dhabi. Stu took the record for fish over the day catching a total of one (the only one out of all of us) approx 7" long.

The day was summed up when Surab from off our course saw us at dinner and asked "what happened to you? why do you look so tired and red!". Another successful weekend.

Off to the Races

Hello again!

I've not been up to too much that's worth talking about hence the lack of new posts. But here is a small titbit of what im up to away from work;

Weekend camel race: So out here in the desert they race camels rather than horses like back home. Camels are well adapted to long SLOW walks through the desert but shit at frantic high speed pursuits. Personally I was more concerned about staying in bed on my day off but some of the others seemed uber keen for the "cultural" experience and so we headed off to the middle of nowhere to watch the races.

Once we got to the race course it too a little time to work out what was supposed to happen. After standing around in some drizzle pretty similar to that from Scotland we started to hear a lot of car horn beeping in the distance. As the entourage drew nearer we realised they were coaxing a ragged group of camels all exhausted and frothing at the mouth down the final stretch of the race course. As it turned out the Arabs had decided it was easier to build one track 10km long and have the camels run round once than build a 1km track and do 10 laps. This meant that there was some frantic action at the start a long period of nothing then a final burst of excitement again at the end.

The start of the race was defiantly the spectators sport. The way it was organised meant we could take bets on which handler was trampled to death at the start as well as which camel would win overall. What happened was the camels were all pulled begrudgingly, like only camels can truly achieve, to a net that served as the start line. Their handlers then stood in front of the net. On the race track. Idiots.

On the clapper the net shot up and the camels get whipped into action by a "robot jocky". This invention was brought in after the UAE passed a law preventing children from racing the camels. It is simply a box with a motor in it that is attached to a whip or bit of rope. When the net goes up someone must remotely operate the "jocky" and it whirls the rope around whipping the arse of the camels. The best bit is watching the handlers stuck in the middle of the track run for their lives as 30 maddened, grumpy camels spring into action and flail their legs about in a action totally ineffective at propelling them forwards but great at taking out any tardy handlers. As the camels head off into the distance the locals spectate in true UAE style; they all jump into their 4x4's and blast after the camels horns blaring leaving us to wait in the rain till they make it round the ridiculously long track (seriously we couldn't even see the other side!). Great fun.