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…