Diving at Dibba

So I just realized that I completely forgot to post this entry from the last time I was here. Let's pretend this post is current....

On my last full weekend in Ajman, a group of us went snorkeling/SCUBA diving at Dibba Island on the eastern side of the UAE, read: Gulf Of Oman = Arabian Sea ==> Indian Ocean.

John, Michael, Tina and I took Tina's car and met Nadia and her Italian friends at a decent looking resort with a reputable PADI shop. We paid the day rate to get in and proceeded to the dive shop. John and I were going to dive, while the remainder of the group stuck to snorkeling. Because John hadn't had any recorded dives in the past 5 years and the shop wasn't hurting for business, they wouldn't let us dive.

View of Dibba Island from shore, upon arrival.

We discovered there was another resort up the beach. The Golden Palm, or whatever generic name it was called, was Japanese owned, Indian run, and their dive shop wasn't certified by anyone, in case you couldn't tell just from looking. We were staying shallow, vis was good, and the rates were cheap, so we decided to go for it. We got outfitted in our gear and hopped aboard the dive boat. We got to the island. After John had some difficulty getting his fins to stay on, we were good to go and backrolled in. Immediately, my fins fell off and sank to the bottom, 16 feet below. The view of the fish decidedly make up for this.

Fish

Fish - With John in the background.

I got my fins back, fixed them and we began our swim.

Fish - and coral.

One fish - and coral.

Me! In a very ladylike pose.

Fish

At some point, my the frame of my mask actually shattered and the lenses slammed into my face. Ahh... so this is why this place is cheap. I kind of managed to put the whole deal back together, but had to finish the dive holding the mask in place. I spent a good deal of my air clearing the mask on nearly every breath. Regardless, I was determined to finish the dive.

John - making fun.

John thought it was funny that my mask exploded. Note his expression. Now this whole dive, I'd been very careful to keep track of my camera, clipping it to my vest. The dive was over and we prepared to get back on the boat. I checked one last time to be sure it was clipped and handed up my rig. By the time I got on the boat about 90 seconds later, the camera was missing. It wasn't on any vest. We jumped back in the water and couldn't find it on the bottom. The boat driver didn't seem to care. I had to figure the camera was gone. Just in case, I filed a notice with the office desk. We went back to the first resort to meet our friends. About three hours later, I get a call from our skeevy SCUBA place. APPARENTLY, while the boat driver was alone, in a different location, in 20 feet of water at 30 knots, he saw the camera, jumped in and got it for me. Likely story skeevy looking boatman. Anyway, I got the camera back and we headed home. Today is won.

Snorkeling in Musandam, Oman

Saturday we had an early(ish) start. John’s friends Jacob and Anne Marie were down visiting from COWI Qatar. Michael and I decided to join them for a snorkeling trip to Musandam, Oman. John picked us up at 9 and we head north on the Emirates Road.

Camels on the highway.

10km to the border we see a sign for last UAE gas station and pull over. The tank is now full and comes time to leave; the car won’t start. I think to myself this is a common OCC/COWI theme… We push it to the side of the station and let it sit a few minutes. The next time, the car starts right up. Clearly, this is a good sign to start the day.

The explorers.

After passing through Umm Al Quwain and Ras Al Khaimah, two northern emirates, we reach the Omani border. We pass through UAE Customs and get our exit stamps. Proceeding to the Omani Customs, we end up waiting outside for a while, but no problems. We take a couple different sheets of paper from one person to another for about 30 minutes and pass through the system. Other than paying almost $75 US in fees to get through, it’s fairly easy. John walks over to a small building and buys Omani car insurance, good for the next three days, and climb back into the car.

Once we reach Oman, we’re following the coast road along a rocky shore. We need to reach the Golden Tulip Resort by 1:00 to reserve our boat. Despite the best of John’s speeding attempts, including passing a police SUV, we pull in at 1:05. No problem, say the Arabs behind the desk. They give us a few minutes to catch a bite at their café. This, of course, takes forever and we get the food to go.

Musandam, Oman

The Golden Tulip Resort

From the resort, a guide takes us down into the village of {insert village name here}. We pull up to a marina. We’re scrambling to get our food and snorkel gear out of the car and onto the boat. Once we’re all aboard and catch our breath, we realize that we have our own boat. There was no reason to run.

Typical mooring arrangment in the harbor.

Campers on the beach. Accessible only by boat.

Our "dive" boat.

Another Tourist Dhow

Our “dive boat” for the day is a traditional Arabic dhow, converted from sail to diesel and painted nicely for passengers. The boat is maybe 40 feet long. Decorative pillows line the edges and rugs cover the bare floor. There are no protective railings you’d expect to see on an American tour boat; you’re free to hang yourself over the side of the boat as far as you want.

We pull pass an enormous breakwater (which of course we proceed to analyze as coastal engineers), and enter the Arabian Gulf. Shortly afterward, we turn away and enter a river system. The mountains here are incredible, cutting off all transportation other than boats. We can see the rock strata as it was bent and forced up to form these mountains years ago – Yes still being nerdy as Anne Marie does her best to ignore the frequent bouts of dork-dom.

Rocks

The boat stops offshore of a couple small fishing villages on the Oman coast as the guide tells us a story about each village. The villages are accessible by only boat or helicopter. Most are inhabited in the winter months only. A water ship supplies each town’s water tower once a week. Our hour long voyage is punctuated by brief periods of watching the dolphins jump around the boat.

Typical fishing village.

Dolphins!

We drop anchor at telegraph island and its time to snorkel. Quickly donning my grocery store snorkel gear, I jump in as the guide says something about not needing to mind the jellyfish. Right. It’s a quick swim the rest of the way to the island.

Telegraph Island

The island is surrounded by a coral reef, complete with lots of little colorful striped fish making me feel as if I’ve stumbled upon some Finding Nemo-esque residence. Diving off the surface, the water quality improves, increasing visibility to maybe 40 feet. The 5 of us decide to circumnavigate the island. Off the north side, we can even see yellowfin tuna down deep. I’m not quite sure what the guide was talking about. There are tons of jellyfish all over the island. Thankfully they’re mostly small immature ones, no larger than 2” or so, that can’t hurt. I got a 3 or 4 small stings, but still hardly worth mentioning. Anne Marie got two larger stings as our only real casualty of the trip.

The Omani Sheik's house. "Is not like Dubai - Maybe small house, but have very big heart"

We climb back aboard the boat. There’s an hour long dhow cruise back to the harbor. We watch the sun set over the ancient rock formations, just as we’re pulling back in. Graciously thanking our guides, we climb back onto the dock and back to our car. It takes nearly 3 hours to clear customs and complete the drive back to Ajman, but it was a great weekend.

Dredging International

There are two superprojects being run out of my project office. Mine is Al Zorah, the other is called Al Dana. Al Dana is another project where a significant area of land (as in, square miles) are being created in the sea and shaped to look like an eccentric palm tree. It is a design-build project where COWI was retained by the contractor, Dredging International (DI).

Thursday night, DI had a BBQ on-site and invited the COWI project staff to join them. The COWI project manager invited me to tag along. We're initially supposed to leave around 4:30. Come 6:15 and people are still scurrying about the office. Al Dana is located in the Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah, about an hour north of Ajman. Tina, Michael and I rode up in one car and John and Nadia took another car. We got there just before 8:00.

DI is a predominantly Belgian crew; they have an awesome set-up. Because they're on-site their office / crew quarters and separate meal building are all situated right on an exclusive sandy beach. They have a covered patio area with a large cast concrete grill at one end.

These guys totally showed me up on making their own grill.

Tables and chairs for approx 40 line one edge. Hedwig, the DI project manager, used to be a DJ, so there quite an impressive sound system complete with projector showing glory shots of previous Dredging International projects (ref: The Pearl, Qatar), as well as shots of the crew on days off. They bring out two large coolers, one of soda, one of beer. We quickly discover there is also beer hidden at the bottom of the soda cooler.

Me, John and one of the DI guys.

More people begin to show up. When the party is complete, we have about 40 to 50 people, it is a mixed group of the DI crew (predominantly Belgian), another DI crew from the next island building project down the beach (again mostly Belgian), COWI (3xDanish, 1xAmerican, 1xItalian), and the few families that have been traveling with the more senior workers. Most people are in their late 20s and early 30s.

There is lots of meat. The grill keeps it coming. Ribs, pork chops, chicken, sausage, steak, and on and on. There's a full salad bar with pasta salads, green salads, egg salads, and many fresh breads and garlic bread inside.

Nadia and Tina at dinner.

Everyone is full, but the beers keep appearing. Every time one of the cooler is empty, someone appears with another one, full of beers kept in a different place. This happens about three times. Three of the Belgian guys decide that its time to show off. A wakeboard appears. They head out to one of the boats. Normally, wakeboarding in the ocean, at night, would seem to be a very dangerous activity, but let's re-evaluate. These guys are here to build an island. As construction is in progress, they have effectively already built their own sheltered lagoon. The pace of construction in the UAE is brutal. The day rate for machinery is by far the most expensive cost, as such, its normally to work 24 hours a day. So…. there are construction flood lights all around the breakwaters. Dredging International has, simply through their work, created a sheltered, brightly lit lagoon for 24/7 wakeboarding immediately adjacent to their exclusive, restricted access, sandy beach where in the near future, land will sell for millions, if not tens of millions, per half acre. Two hours later, the three guys come back, wearing only saltwater soaked skivvies.

Hedwig is really into his party now. The crew decides to play the DI theme song, where, of course, everyone shouts along to, "together we stand, creating the land for tomorrow." I guess that gets you going when you build islands for a living. We stay for a while and closeout the party; I get home about 3:30 the next morning.

I have to wake up the next morning to meet with my engineering manager. Projects always take precedence in a project office, so despite the fact that it’s the weekend, we meet in the office at 9:00AM. Jorgen is headed back to Denmark for a week so we work out a plan out my time for the duration of his trip. We discuss some of the technical issues that I anticipate and the best processes for finding the answers when it comes time. Much of my time before I leave will be spent finalizing the exact footprint of the canal. It is critical that we can lock in this geometry as individual block shapes and revetment curvatures are based here.

At noon, Michael and I give Sebastian a call. He's one of the guys from DI and they've invited us back to go wakeboarding with them on our day off. We arrive to find that they have two boats. Now lets be clear, these are not inboard tow sports boats. They're not runabouts, heck, they're not even recreational boats. We'll be riding around in the work boats used to ferry work crews out to the islands and to the dredge ships. One of the boats has two engines, but one is out of commission so we move to the smaller boat. The smaller boat is about 25' long with a 75 hp outboard. It's capable of about 12 mph at full throttle, 10 mph with a wakeboarder in a turn. I didn't even realize I could stay on plane at this speed on a board. There's not enough speed to jump over the wakes, but we try anyway.

Entrance to the DI jetty

Don't run over the line! (Amateurs)

Michael's First Attempt

I’m really amused that we’re out here, exclusively, wakeboarding around all this construction equipment. There are barges and tug boats, large excavators, a dredging ship in the periphery and piles of boulders waiting to be placed. Here we are, in an industrial boat, being pulled around, having fun amongst all this massive equipment and material.

Hedwig has also brought his windsurfer here from Qatar. I tried that too for about an hour. So I can pull the sail up, its not as heavy as I expected. However, my balance is severely lacking. We do some more wakeboarding and its time to head out. A good time is had by all.

Sebastiaan, the windsurfer, and an excavator.

They asked me if I knew how to drive a boat.

Then they asked me to drive the rest of the day.

Michael and I head back to the apartment to clean up. 45 minutes later we're off to downtown Bur Dubai to find some place to eat. This part of the city is more packed than any part of NYC I've ever seen. My tiny corolla is far too large to get through the mass of cars and pedestrians moving with seemingly reckless abandon. It takes almost an hour to park. We walked around a bit until we find a Tex-Mex place and head. I, of course, order a plate of nachos. After dinner we head home. Tomorrow will be a long day…

The Third Weekend - Saturday

Saturday we got up early. Michael and I had great aspirations. We had quickly discovered that we were both bikers. The UAE is supposed to have really intense mountain biking out in the Wadis. A Wadi is a dry creek bed. They’re rocky, twisty and dry, at least until the rains come in December and fills them with flash floods. Despite construction detours and lost directions, we made it to Waffi’s bike store only an hour late. They do rent bikes, pretty cheaply, in fact. However, to go biking in the Wadis, you also need minimum 3 quarts of water, a first aid kit, 3 spare tubes, a spare tire, wrenches, and 4x4 truck or SUV. The Wadis are only accessible by “dune bashing” almost two hours’ worth of desert. Despite the cheap rental price, the cost of the extras is staggering. Plan B.

Nothing sounds more official when you’re flying by the seat of your pants than Plan B. Shaggy has a great song about picking up girls in Abu Dhabi. We decide to check it out. Abu Dhabi is the largest emirate and the governmental center of all the U.A.E. It sits atop one of the largest oil reserves in the world. Michael and I climb back in my rental corolla and hit the road. The drive is about 90 minutes. It is one of the straightest, flattest roads I have ever seen. There are speed cameras every couple kilometers, ensuring you don’t break the 120 km/hr (~75mph) speed limit. If you’re lucky enough to get in behind a local, they know where they all are. Feel free to speed up to 160-180 km/hr (~105 mph), but be sure to slow down with them to avoid the trap. My car has an alarm when ever you exceed 120. Lights on the dash flash in tempo with an audible alarm emanating from somewhere on the dashboard.

A cool looking circle building on the way to Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi is a more maturely developed city than Dubai. Traffic isn’t as bad and we find there’s actually been some city planning. Streets and buildings are laid out in blocks like a western city. We have no idea what there is to see or do, so we head to the Corniche, or sea front drive. We find a beach and head in for a swim. As we approach the gate, we are barred from entrance. Turns out Abu Dhabi is a much more conservative emirate. There are separate beaches for men and women/families. We find our way to the men’s beach and go for a swim. I don’t know what Shaggy was singing about, he really must be Mister lover lover if he’s picking up women here. The water is warm and SUPER salty. After a bit of swimming and napping on the beach, we continue exploring.

An Arabic water fountain in Abu Dhabi

The walk signs are a little more intense here, complete with Michael's imitaiton.

A view of Abu Dhabi beach, as close as I can get with a camera.

The Crown Prince of the UAE lives in this palace.

Across the bay we see this cool looking tower and decide to check it out. Much to our dismay, we find out that its only a tower in a mall, attached to an Ikea. Nevertheless, we head in. Like any mall here, it is a center for social life. During the summer months, the heat is overwhelming and most people, from all walks of life, congregate in the malls. Abu Dhabi has clearly grown jealous of Dubai, as we witness continuing construction of a second indoor ski slope. Additionally, this mall has elected to include what they claim to be an Olympic sized skating rink. We attempt to go up the tower, only to find entrance is barred. Michael and I take a nice dinner at a French restaurant within the mall and then begin our long drive home.

The cool looking tower, from the outside.

The mall, inside, complete with cool looking tower.

Cool looking tower, again.

The third weekend- Friday

So I have two recreational goals before I leave this country. I want to go sailing and diving in the Arabian Gulf. A number of people in the office snorkel, so I may be able to accomplish the diving on a technicality at a later date. So Saturday morning, bright and early (say… 10AM) Michael and I head off to the beaches and resorts of Dubai to find a sailboat.

In Ajman, you can park anywhere, just make sure your tires are not in a travel lane...

I’m not here for very long, so I won’t be picky. I’ll be happy with either renting a sailboat of my own, or just crewing on a race boat. With so many rich folks around with large yachts, they are constantly in search of crew, so I’m told. We drive back up the sand highway to get to the Emirates highway and head south to Dubai.

We stopped on the way to see the local souqs or markets. Michael was looking for a ring, so we walked through the gold souq. We also strolled through the old souqs. To get back to our car, we walked up along the shore of Dubai Creek. The creek was full of Abras (big water taxis), water taxis, and traditional dhows carrying freight and passengers.

Entering the souqs.

A Gold souq

Water taxis at Dubai Creek.

We continue south to Jumeirah public beach. Dubai is much more open than some of the more conservative emirates so here, men and women are allowed on the same beach. However, cameras are strictly not allowed. There are very few locals here and the beach is filled primarily with westerners and to a lesser degree Indians. Very few people know how to swim in the UAE so the only people we saw in the water are the white visitors. There are no sailboats here, we continue south. We tried to stop farther south at the Jumeirah Beach Hotel. Turns out we did not have enough money to try to enter this hotel. The valet parking was full of Bentleys, Ferraris, Maseratis, and on and on. The cheapest cars around were Porsches. We continue south.

The view from Jumeirah public beach with Burj Al Arab in the distance.

We stopped in to the Dubai Offshore Sailing Club, DOSC, and chat with the guard. Despite niceties and trying to convince him we know people inside, we cannot gain entrance. We continue south.

The director of COWI UAE recommended we stop in and see the Madinat Jumeirah. Cool, that’s the next resort down the beach, here we go. We roll up and find surprisingly free covered, air-conditioned parking. Score. The Madinat was designed to look like an old fashioned Arabic fort. I have a feeling, however, that this one is much larger. The interior is filled with small souqs selling anything from swimwear to diamond jewelry, as well as restaurants that are prohibitively expensive. To be expected. We walked a bit and ended up eating Panini from Seattle’s Best Coffee.

Me and Michael in Madinat Jumeirah, with Burj Al Arab in the distance. You can see it from everywhere.
The canals at Madinat Jumeirah.

We’re now at the Palm Jumeirah, one of those fake islands that looks like a palm tree. Of course, I can’t come this far and not go out there. We can’t get on any of the fronds, as they are gated/guarded communities. We travel all the way to the end, where we find the Atlantis Resort. This is the hotel that has recently caught a whale shark. Its caused quite a commotion that they are charging admission to see the cage beast. We take a few pictures and head back off the palm.

There’s another marina farther south called Mina Seyahi Yacht Club, located in Dubai Marina. (Tom Isherwood lives somewhere near here, for those of you who know him.) I seem to recall this yacht club had something to do with sailing. We meet yet another guard who speaks only broken English. This time I nearly insist that people inside are looking for crew to help sail their boats. The guard gives me a phone number to call, not telling me whoever I might be calling. Captain Jacob picks up the phone. (Eat your heart out hippy.) “Sure” he says, “I’ve got a boat we can take you on.” Great! He says that he’s out at the moment, but he’ll be back at 7:30 and we can get some coffee and discuss going out then.

As its 4:30 now, Michael and I head to Emirates Mall to kill some time, and get lost in a few more city streets. We make our way back about 7:00. Security is way beefed up, the parking lot is filling up and many taxis are dropping people off. Hmm… I wonder whats going on? We meet the same security guard and he tells us we can park.

We wander over to the front gate where it looks like people are lined up to pay an admission fee. There are two huge black security guards. They are quite busy keeping people in line and somehow decide we’re not worth the trouble when we waltz past explaining we are going to see Captain Jacob at slip D28. Now we’re really wondering what’s going on.

Turns out that slip D28 is out at the end. As we continue walking that way, past gorgeous yachts, we note that the boats keep getting bigger. As we approach the end, there is an enormous Sunseeker 64’ flying bridge power yacht in the space. Captain Jacob jumps down, happy to see us. He is in his late 20s and from South Africa. He explains that a German guy owns this boat, but he only uses it for two to three weekends a year. The remainder of the time, Capt. Jacob is instructed to take charters to help pay for the yacht. He gives us a tour of the 3 staterooms, plus salon and galley. He then invites us to share coffee with him up on the flying bridge. We have a terrific view of the entire marina. He asks when we’d like to take the boat out. Well, we respond, we’ll need to talk to other people in our office to schedule a good date, but we’ll be sure to call him on Sunday when we get back to the office.

We excuse ourselves and head back to the entrance. We hear the sound of Caribbean music and see all kinds of neon lights. Clearly, this deserves investigating. On one side there are a ton of people gathered gathered around a long skinny bamboo and palm treed structure. On the other side is an enormous fully equipped and high class buffet. We wander to the palm tree structure broadcasting the music. There’s an announcer at one end and people are parading up and down the “catwalk.” We’ve stumbled into a Rip Curl beach fashion show. That’s why people were buying tickets. We hang around for a bit and continue to check out the party. We quickly realize we have no stamps on our hands and no entrance bracelets. We keep a low profile and soon head out. We grab dinner on the way home and head back to get ready for tomorrow.

[ Sorry, no pictures allowed inside the event... I tried...]