a whirlwind stirs

After a month and a half of captivity in the UAE, I'm breaking out of this place. Starting September 4, you can follow my travels from the UAE to the UK where I'll stop in London and Southampton for business meetings. From London, I return to the UAE for a quick meeting about upgrading one of our vessels to DPS-2, and then I really escape to New York for a few days. New York is followed by Georgia, where I'll be packing for the great move out to Houston. My unloading time in H-Town is short lived because I'll be flying to Portland, ME in order to drive to the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath. Bath is followed by a long car ride to Newport for the Newport Boat Show. While in Rhode Island, I'll visit the Hinckley facility in Portsmouth to checkout the T-24R, Haida's new tender. (Haven't heard of the T-24R, you say? That's because it, like Haida, is one of a kind.)

This job is definitely living up to the Chairman's "You're second office is an airplane" description. I can feel the winds picking up now. This job is definitely going to be a wild ride.

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Posted in: announcements,traveling

making waves goes full time

Just as Aaron Sorkin returns to prime time with a show about cable TV news, Making Waves is going full time. For the last two years, I've been interning for an offshore logistics company in the heart of the Arabian Gulf. As of July, I'm now gainfully employed as the company's naval architect and marine engineer.

While this is pretty stellar for me, the whole affair is even more stellar (read: stellar-er) for you. As the boss said when I moved into my Houston office, "Houston is your home base, but your office is an airplane." I travel often. (In fact, in September I'll hit a new city every 2.5 days from September 3-20...) All of that traveling means great pictures and stories (can you say TCNs on a plane?) for you. I can't wait to share, so I hope that you're ready to go full time. Making Waves certainly is.

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Posted in: announcements

for all you boat people

In the spirit of the tour dubai series, it's time for a few engineering escapades. Martin Oliver, the company's Middle East Manager, has been keen to ensure that Tophi and I have been taken to see some of the marine engineering feats undertaken in this fine country.

Recently, Martin, Tophi, and I made way for the Dubai office of the American Bureau of Shipping. We met the office's Chief Engineer and Principal Surveyor-- two very nice gentlemen. They offered us additional contacts at other companies that would be willing to show us new offshore platform construction. After hearing about what's happening for ABS out here, we quickly moved on to the day's main attraction: Dubai Maritime City.

Most developments in Dubai revolve around some central theme that makes each development "(theme) City." There's Festival City, Media City, Internet City, Ice City... er, that one was canceled..., and the list continues. Dubai Maritime City is a revolutionary concept. Combine the grit of sandblasting and dry docking with the glamor of cosmopolitan living, and you get an idea that makes dollar signs flash in front of Dubai World.

Behold the conceptual rendering of Dubai Maritime City. The shipyard is conveniently upwind of the beautiful apartment towers.

When ground broke several years ago, Dubai was riding a flash flood of growth. Two years ago the flood waters (aka economy) receded, and the municipality, through its multiple shell companies, was left holding the (empty) bag. Construction on the DMC's commercial and residential precincts slowed while Dubai World continued scraping away at the shipyard.

Construction of the two Synchrolift tables is seen in the foreground.

When we visited DMC, cameras were not allowed, so I don't have any present-day pictures. The Synchrolift tables are both operating, and we had the opportunity to see a 2780-tonne Saudi offshore diving support vessel undock. The yard has two Synchro-lift tables: one 6000-tonne and one 3000-tonne. The 6000-tonne lift can accommodate vessels 130 m long with a 35 m beam. 

At present, 49 vessels are berthed or docked at the DMC. The operations manager and dock master have a goal of serving 100 vessels on the same day.

The DMC is conveniently located directly on the Gulf. Unlike its predecessor, ships need not time their arrivals and departures with the openings of the Dubai Creek floating bridge. This may be the best feature about the new facility.

Time will only tell if the Dubai Maritime City will live up to its lofty conceptual render. I do think that Synchrolift tables are a fascinating way to conduct a docking. There are definite space advantages to being able to lift a vessel, roll it to a dry berth, and continue docking other vessels. What does the greater maritime community think? (Shout out to WebbieNews readers!!)

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Posted in: dubai,dubai maritime city,engineering escapades,tour series,work photos

all roads lead to abu dhabi

I've had more opportunities during this trip to the UAE to live life drive in the fast lane. When Captain Scott had to leave for a few days, I was given the keys to one of the company cars so that Tophi and I could get to work each day. Those few days went by accident free, and now it appears that I can be trusted behind the wheel. Visitors don't normally drive when they come to the Emirates. Local drivers are notoriously aggressive, but I have had training during my years on Long Island. A recent survey asked UAE drivers (mostly men) what they thought about their driving abilities. Almost 25% of those surveyed admitted that they engage in "risky" driving behavior -- the other 75% lied.

Recently, Tophi and I had the pleasure of taking the Sharjah Transport bus from Sharjah to Abu Dhabi. The trip takes about 2 hours and costs $15 round trip. As we crossed through the familiar portion of Dubai, there's a sign that reminds drivers that ALL roads lead to Abu Dhabi, so there isn't a need to be in a certain lane (read: stay in your own lane, you reckless driver, you.)

We arrived at the Abu Dhabi Central Bus Station after a little over two hours of riding in a packed motor coach. Tophi tells me that the bus was better than he expected.

Abu Dhabi's Sheik Khalifa recently declared that the city be divided into zones and sectors to aid navigation. There are no longer street names; signs like the one shown here are oh so helpful.

We walked past an air quality monitoring station that read, "Breathe Easy. We are monitoring the air."

I found the entrance gates to this park to be interesting. I think that they are tea kettles.

Abu Dhabi has its own share of unfinished projects. The Abu Dhabi Swimming Beach Extension project used dredging machines to increase the beach area.

Abu Dhabi's Corniche Street Beach is divided into different areas: private, family, and public. You have to pay to use the private and family beaches. The paywalled beaches were pretty empty.

We walked down to the Emirates Palace Hotel, but we didn't try to enter. There was a big event, and we would have looked quite out of place. The hotel was originally intended to be a sheik's palace, but he turned it down. I guess it wasn't big enough...

Tophi thinks that this is the service entrance to the Emirates Palace.

Abu Dhabi has its share of superlatives, too. This flagpole is the world's tallest, over 139 meters high.

Abu Dhabi was a refreshing change after seeing Ajman, Sharjah, and Dubai. The people in this emirate seem more active and must enjoy a higher quality of life. There are fewer unfinished projects, so Abu Dhabi doesn't have a skyline of construction cranes.

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Posted in: abu dhabi,anticipation,leisure photos,traveling

sharjah after the storm

The winter months in the UAE bring relief from the 120°F summer. Winter is also the "rainy season." I say "rainy" because the average annual rainfall in the coastal region of the UAE is less than 5 inches. (A south Georgia thunderstorm laughs at the puny rain clouds of the Emirates.)

With hardly any rain, there is little reason to invest in a proper drainage system. When it does precipitate, the rain amounts to a light drizzle. After several days of on again, off again drizzle, Mother Nature opened up on January 28.

Tophi and I were just about to head out for a walk to neighboring emirate Ajman when the storm hit. The power was knocked out, and our hotel's restaurant was leaking badly around the doors and windows. We were trapped in the restaurant until things settled down. We watched outdoor furniture slide around as the sky turned a dark gray.

As we ventured out, the streets were flooding, and drivers didn't know quite what to do. All of the palm trees were deformed from the wind.

The remains of a beach fair got blown around. See that carousel? It was going around backwards like something from a Stephen King novel.

Where's the palm tree?

Oh! What's it doing there?

The wind uprooted several of the palm trees that line the road.

Debris was blown onto the streets in many places.

This flooded bus station was on the way to Ajman.

The sign reads "Apex Dewatering" in front of a construction site. The water is above the curb in this picture.

The wind was pretty intense, and construction sites were easy targets for damage. The sad part is that many of these sites were abandoned anyway -- who knows when this will get cleaned up.

Just as the southern communities in the United States were not equipped to deal with this winter's storms, the UAE is unprepared for a deluge. Most of the streets don't have drainage systems because usually the water can evaporate quickly enough.

The Met Office forecasts more storms are on their way. I'll keep you posted with more photos. There are more photos from our walk after the storm here.

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Posted in: ajman,leisure photos,sharjah,weather

tour dubai: part 3 - the dhow wharves and souks

There are a few sites that I always take my visitors to see. This post is the third and final in a series that covers those locations. And while my Nikon D5000 provides stunning images of the environs, you really have to see all of the glitz and sand to fully appreciate where we are. So come visit! (Or at least read the blog.)

It has been unusually wet here in Sharjah and Dubai for the last week. It has also been quite chilly, even during the day. I'm not sure what's going on with the weather, but it has put a damper on going places.

Our new hotel has also put a damper on going places. We're on the other side of Sharjah now, closer to Ajman, so it's more expensive to catch a cab to Dubai. This will be the final part of the tour dubai series; however, don't let me mislead you. The transportation is not discouraging more posts; the lack of variety in travel destinations is limiting new ventures. I can only write about walking around a mall so many times.

Onward! Today's tour is something that I find to be an eye opener. We often say how a country is built on the backs of this group or that. Dhow trading is the foundation of Dubai's economy, and it will probably return to being the only real thing going when the dust settles. There's such an immense contrast between the glamour of the shopping centers and hotels and Old Dubai.

To stretch out our travel time, we decided to walk from the old hotel to the Sharjah-Dubai border. We encountered this lot of cars leaving a mosque after the Friday service.

Though not quite a dhow, this wreck is part of the litter in the Sharjah Lagoon. In the far distance, you can see the Sharjah Eye. (NB: London later copied this Ferris wheel.)

The Dhow Wharf in Dubai is packed with boats waiting to pick up cargo. Most carry tires and appliances to countries around the gulf like Iran.

I don't think your hand is going to keep you from getting wet. Tophi and I wandered around an office tower with shops on the ground floor for over an hour waiting for the rain to stop.

This yacht takes "wooden" to a whole new level. 

Dubai's Spice Souk

It's always fun to play the "Name this Spice" game with the souk merchants. After a merchant offers you tea and dates, he tries to convince you that his saffron is the best. I convinced Tophi to play the game with one merchant in German to see if the merchant would follow. That crafty man carried the conversation with no problem.

Well. That's that. No more to see here. Move along... 

No, I'll have more stories and photographs in the coming days. We're almost at the halfway point! In the meantime, check out the some of the pictures that didn't make it to the blog.

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Posted in: dhow,dubai,leisure photos,sharjah,tour series

posting delays

I realize that it's been over a week since I last updated you on Haida or showed you another stop on the tour dubai series. Last week, the company moved Chris and me from the Al Seef Beach Hotel to another place farther away from the port that had lower rent. Since the move, I have had trouble connecting to the internet, along with a myriad of other "difficulties."

I've got more stories to share, so stick around. In the meantime, you could always take a look back through the archives or browse the gallery of pictures on my Picasa album.

Scott has a new kite surfing board, but the wind here in Sharjah hasn't given time to play with it.

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Posted in: announcements,procrastination

sharjah desert park

After multiple trips to the UAE, I finally made it out to the Sharjah Desert Park home to Sharjah's Natural History Museum, Children Farm, and Arabia Wildlife Center. (I skipped the Children Farm... I don't want to know about that.)

The Desert Park is a hefty drive out of Sharjah, so the distance has been cost prohibitive in the past. This weekend Scott is away, and George told us to take the car and see some of the sights. The car was useful for getting to part 2 of our tour dubai series, and we would not have made the journey out to the Desert Park without it.

On to some pictures.

The less than full parking lot for the Sharjah Natural History and Botanical Garden.

The first hall within the Natural History Museum is filled with marine life suspended from the ceiling. The hanging sharks and fish had the effect of lowering my expectations.

Oops! Someone forgot to write the English translation for this kiosk. 

Awwwwwwe. This model sand cat made me happy. It's not quite Squeak, but I want to find one of this elusive cats for Webb.

Oh yeah? How about a little amoxicillin for those survivors?

The Camel -- the national animal of the UAE

Some people need help to tell the camel's mouth from its rear.

The museum even had 'splosions! of life!! in Arabic!!!

The dinosaurs were pretty neat. Every natural history museum should have at least one dinosaur.

The Botanical Garden side of the museum had several interactive exhibits. You could braid rope, play with a xylophone, smell different plants, and even find out the energy value of different compounds. Here, Tophi is seen enthusiastically playing the xylophone. In case you missed the connection, too, the xylophone is made of wood. Trees are a type of plant, obviously...

After wandering through the Natural History Museum and skipping over the Children Farm (whawhawhattt?), we went to the Arabia Wildlife Center. Live animals are always pretty cool, but the Wildlife Center was not cool with photography. You can pretend to have seen countless exhibits on snakes, rodents, birds, and mammals. And if you thought the taxidermy sand cat was cute, then you really missed out on two live sand cats running around the Center.

What a great day to celebrate the natural environment that is so often tarnished by Emirati progress! I'll close with the Desert Park's recycling initiative.

The Sharjah Desert Park is leading the way for alternative sorting.

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Posted in: culture,leisure photos,sharjah

tour dubai: part 2 - the mall of the emirates

There are a few sites that I always take my visitors to see. This post is the second in a series that covers those locations. And while my Nikon D5000 provides stunning images of the environs, you really have to see all of the glitz and sand to fully appreciate where we are. So come visit! (Or at least read the blog.)

Stop. Before you start making remarks that my tour destinations consists solely of malls, let's stop to consider what other tourist destinations Dubai has to offer?  ... Can't think of any? Right. This emirate is based on a commitment to become a shopping mecca.

Eh... word choice. I'll glaze over that by introducing you to the Mall of the Emirates.

The Mall of the Emirates

While the Dubai Mall may tempt deep-pocketed travelers with superlatives like "world's largest mall," "world's largest acrylic viewing panel for an aquarium," "world's tallest fountain," "world's tallest building," and "world's largest candy shop," the slightly smaller, slightly older Mall of the Emirates doesn't bring shame to the royal family. The Mall of the Emirates boasts the Middle East's first indoor ski slope, Ski Dubai, and in typical fashion, the slope is the largest indoor ski slope in the world. (Take that, Dubai Mall!)

Get excited!

Now, I didn't give much credit to Ski Dubai the first two trips out here. Sure, I've peered into the climate controlled frosty wonderland's windows from inside the mall on many occasions, but I haven't considered actually skiing. Be it the fact that everyone asks if I have ridden the slopes in Dubai or be it the fact that I had an accomplice, I can now claim that I have skied Dubai.

For $41 your kids can romp around the Snow Park, featuring attractions like the one shown here. Based on this ride and the bubble experience at the Dubai Mall, I'm beginning to doubt how these kids are raised.

The chair lift to the top of the 80-meter slope moves slowly, allowing Tophi to capture these pictures.

Ski Dubai and the Mall of the Emirates require the energy of 3500 barrels of oil each day for air conditioning and electricity. That averages to 1 barrel of oil for each daily visitor.

So I'm not exactly graceful on skis.

Our two hours on the slope went by like two hours. It was entertaining, and I was able to practice my skiing. But. more. than. two. hours. would have been too. much. We hopped back in the car and glided towards the Burj Al Arab, the glitzy seven star hotel that didn't make the 7 Modern Architectural Wonders List.

That's not the Burj Al Arab -- that's the hotel Atlantis!

One wrong turn later, I narrowly escaped the long road to Abu Dhabi by taking the slightly shorter road to the Palm Jumeirah. I conceded to defeat, stopped for some pictures, and headed back to Sharjah. The Burj Al Arab wasn't brightly lit that night anyway.

The Atlantis hotel is the top of this photo on the "crescent." How apropos for the Atlantis to be on the first bit of land that will likely descend into the Arabian Gulf. It's beautiful in the mean time.

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Posted in: atlantis,dubai,leisure photos,ski dubai,tour series

haida: now served with working engines

It's been a while since Haida has stretched her sea legs -- 10+ years. While sea trials may still be in the (very) distant future, the engineers gave a preview this week of what's waiting to roar to life.

M.Y. Haida has been moored in Port Khalid, Sharjah during an extensive overhaul and refit for the last several years.

Haida is powered by two Enterprise medium-speed diesel engines that produce about 1000 hp each. She's been reported to reach almost 19 knots, but sea trial data from 1947 report a speed of 16.7 knots at max engine RPM. Over the last year, the refit support team has been working to locate replacement head gaskets for the Enterprise engines. As you can imagine, it's not easy getting parts for an engine built in the early 1940s. After searching around the United States, the engineering team in Sharjah decided to fabricate the head gaskets. With a little (read: quite a bit) of love and care, the engineers put the Enterprise engines back online.

The three-bladed, 65" propellers await the command of the reinstated air control system.

Port astern, starboard ahead.

This picture was taken while the port engine was going astern. In these early quayside tests, the engines are only going 150-200 RPM. 

This is the engine control station that has been temporarily installed as a bridge wing station. Control air signals from this stand travel down to the engine room.

The Enterprise engines have been modified to accept the control air signal. This eliminates the need for a telegraph; however, the engines can still be controlled from the engine room.

More quayside tests will be necessary before the engines will be ready to go to sea. In the mean time, work continues on restoring the interior and updating the vessel's systems. 

If you squint, you can make out the puffs of smoke coming from the funnel. Haida will celebrate her 64th birthday this year.

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Posted in: Enterprise,haida,haida photos,work photos