Sunday 25th July 2010

At LONG last I hear you say, whats he been up to?
Well I could say its been very busy and I haven't had much time to write, true but also I find logging into this site is very complex and if I can't find my notes I give up and try again later in the week.
Still living in my hotel apartment here in central Abu Dhabi (www.visionhotel,net), its very comfortable, handy for the city centre and I don't have to clean, make beds,wash clothes etc etc, very relaxing. However I do need to find a pad of my own and have spent some time looking about. Surprisingly considering all the building work going on here there isn't that much available, but on day I'll find somewhere really nice.

The other week 9th-16th July spent over in the UK at a research place called H R Wallingford, (near Oxford) along with a group of six pilots who we trained up to pilot ships along the new shipping channel to Musaffah, now looks like opening 15th Sept. A good week but hard work and my apologies to those who I didn't get to see or speak to. Surprise, surprise I got sun burnt on the Sunday whilst walking around a traction engine rally close by.

Work, as always is very busy, at times a bit frustrating but on the whole exciting and doing things I haven't done before. EG hydrographic surveys, approving tenders for new ship building, working with the military, town planning just to name a few. Never a dull moment.

July/August is not a particularly good time  to be here due to the heat (up to 50C) and humidity, so going out means going in the car, but watch you don't get burnt opening the doors or holding the gear lever. The local paper ran a magazine the other week called 18-30, well some of you may remember the 18-30 club from way back when it was sun sea, sand and !!!, so I thought strange for here. It turns out it was a holiday brochure of places to go where the temperature was between 18-30 and there I was getting excited, well they may have had 50-65 club? A lot of people leave this time of year because of the heat, and next month it is Ramadan, that will interesting.

Had a few visitors (you know who you are) and a very enjoyable time was had. Flo and Joe are coming out for a week from the 6th Aug, even though it too hot but at-least they get to see the place.

Well thats about it for the moment, I'm sure there's lots of other things I could write but my mind is not concentrating on whats happened, must be time for a beer,

Cheers

John