January 17, 2010: a new week

Happy Sunday, America! (Although, I definitely want to acknowledge Canada, China, Japan, South Korea, and the United Kingdom -- go international readers!) While Americans enjoyed the final 24 hours of the weekend, those of us working in the Arab world started a new work week.

Things have been pretty quiet around the office the past few days. Scott has been making trips during the day to Al Jadaf. He avoids the morning rush hour by leaving Sharjah after 10:00 am. I have sat through both Los Angeles and New York rush hours, but Dubai is. the. worst. The average commute between Sharjah and Dubai is under 20 kilometers (12.4 mi), but the average commute time is over 60 minutes. Workers could easily walk to work faster than riding in a car! (Wait - there aren't sidewalks between Sharjah and Dubai. Better think twice about going pedestrian.) To make matters worse, Dubai city planners (an oxymoron) neglected to allot space for parking. So after commuting over an hour, workers spend additional time trying to find a place to leave their cars. Whoops!

While Scott has been away, I've been working on schematics of the yacht's critical systems (freshwater, seawater, fuel oil, lube oil, etc.) I have also taken the opportunity to tour the Anchor Handling Towing Supply Vessels and Offshore Supply Vessels that are part of my employer's fleet. (George would like me to point out that uninformed individuals frequently say "Anchor Handling Tug" rather than "Anchor Handling Towing Supply Vessel." Consider yourself now informed by a man with over 30 years of experience in the offshore industry.)

Saturday, this dhow rafted with a break bulk cargo ship. I think that this makes an interesting comparison of the ancient and the modern ways of transporting goods by break bulk. I hope to visit the Sharjah Maritime Museum soon to learn more about the dhows. They're really fascinating considering how long they have been around and how little (that is, no) engineering or science goes into crafting them.

Tomorrow I will be making a trip to Al Jadaf to trace some of the systems. Captain Scott called it a day to "get all grubby." I haven't decided if I'm going to take my camera or not.

I've started uploading other pictures to my Picasa site. Using Blogger was a good idea; all of the Google products connect seamlessly. You can view the pictures that didn't make it to the blog by going to http://picasaweb.google.com/hkdixon11.

Posted in: al jadaf,dubai,work photos