Around the Dubai Creek

Weather: Sunshine
Temperature: 36 C
Humidity: 23%

Finally we left the yard a bit earlier than usual, I was actually back at my apartment at 1600. One of the things I have been longing to do in Dubai was to have a stroll around in the old Deira area in the Dubai creek. This was the old trading village where the original markets were situated. This is something totally different from the Dubai we are used to from television and media lately!

The transport device used to cross the creek, called an "Abra". It costs about 0,5 Dhirams to get an Abra-ride - the equivalent on 0,9 NOK.

In the midle of the Creek you can find the gold souk, a large marked stuffed with every possible item that can be made of gold.

Even though Dubai has become more western the last decade, there are still some traditions left from the "old days". Here we have one of the hundreds pipe-smoking cafès in Deira - Dubai Creek.

An arabic siesta

Around Jumeirah

Weather: Sunshine

Temperature: 35 C

Humidity: 51%

The 360 degree with the Burj-Al-Arab hotel in the background

Ryno and Christopher with the iluminated champagne coolers

Ryno, Christopher and me at the 360...

An extended Hummer.. hmm - not something you would see at home...

Night food at a local arabic kiosk. This is not very representative for Dubai, you really have to search to find something as simple and old-fashion as this..

Burj-Al-Arab

Weather: Sunshine
Temperature: 37 C
Humidity: 61%

By far the most famous building in Dubai is the Burj-Al-Arab, the worlds only 7 star hotel, which is situated on a small artificial island some hundred meters off Jumeirah beach. The interior of the hotel basically only consists of gold, and the surrounding area is more or less like a farytale.

Friday evening we decided to go and have a drink at a bar called 360 degrees. This bar is also situated about a hundred meters off Jumeirah beach, where the view over Dubai and the Burj-Al-Arab is absolutely fantastic. This is more like a lounge, furnished only with white leather sofas and puffs (sakko sekker). Each table has a transparent champagne cooler with neon lights. The lights changes colours with the rhythm of the music, and all the surrounding hotels have different light shows. As you enter the Jumeirah Beach Resort, a driver will take you out to the club in a small golf cart. As you are closing in to 360 degrees you pass heaps of huge yatches and the entire Dubai hotel skyline appears. The place is like a big cyberspace tivoli! Andres - this is a club you will love! Maybe we should try to make reservations for new years...

The Jumeirah Beach Resort. Has a fantastic view over 360 degrees and Burj-Al-Arab from the rooftop bar.

At the photo posted the 14th of October there is a better picture of the 360 degree bar in the midle of Burj-Al-Arab and the Jumeirah Beach Resort.

Burj Dubai

Here is a photo og the Burj Dubai tower that is under construction. As everything else in this country, this building is just amazing. Already now it is close to the tallest building in the citty, but they have only reached the 90th floor - it will eventually have close to 200. The building will be the tallest building in the world by far, but nobody want to say how big it will be. However, rumors claim that the altitude will be between 800-850 meters. I have attached some pictures to show how insane this eventually will be.. As a referance, Burj-Al-Arab which is the worlds tallest Hotel, rise 321 meters into the sky...

Pretty crazy right...

And if that isn't enough - they are building another building that is gonna be just as big. And that is precisely why nobody want to state how tall any of the buildings will end up being...

Getting organized

Weather: Sunshine
Temperature: 35 C
Humidity: 20%

Spinneys grosery store (withe a new offive complex in the back).

Finally I feel I am getting organized here in Dubai. Today my car arrived, which I am gonna share with a polish electrician. It dosen't take you long to understand that a life in Dubai without a car is hopeless - a car is crusial if you are staying here over a longer period of time. Yesterday evening I drove to ther nearest grosery store and shopped everything I neede for the apartment; from milk and bread to detergent and dish brush. Here is a picture of my fantastic grey Mazda.

Ususlly, when I have had a long and exhausting day at work and I am short on time, the easiest way of having dinner is calling room service. In 15 minutes the meal is served in the apartment for the rediculous price of 15 Dhirams (28 kroners). It is hard to even coock a cheaper meal your own apartment for that price.

I also had to try out the camel milk! The brand "Camelicious" was just to inviting that I could resist. It actually did not taste that far from cow milk, only slightly sweeter. If you want to practice some arabic you can read the back of this Ritz-package :)

The Vessel

Wednesday 25th

Weather: Sunshine
Temperature: 43 C!!
Humidity: 40%

The last days have been consumed by work, work and work. There are now probably around 60-70 people working on the vessel, and they all need to be co-ordinated and they all have a lot of questions etc. Here is a picture of the deck area...

Around the Yard

Weather: Sunshine

Temperature: 38 C

Humidity: 21%

This is my new office! Every day I throw on my white suit, which is not so white anymore, and head down to the vessel in the dock. Totally different from my usual work at the office in Stavanger.

Bergitta at birth number 8

View of Dubai (Bur Dubai and Sheikh Zayed road) from the vessel bridge

Mall of the Emirates

Weather: Sunshine
Temperature: 36 C
Humidity: 79%

After a long day at the yard I was eager to do some sightseeing and shopping. There are vast opportunities for shopping in Dubai, in addition to all the regular shops around there are over 40 enormous shopping senteres around the citty. One of the biggest of them, The Mall of The Emirates, is on the picture above. That's the one I visited yesterday..

This is the dome in the middle of the shopping mall. I guess the difference between these malls and our famous Kvadrat must be pretty much EVERYTHING. From the palms, the gold, the variety of decent & good shops, the nuber of sheiks etc.

It took me about 1,5 hours to walk and look at shopps, without studying anything in detail or trying anything on, and that was just the first floor. There is a second floor just as big. And with all the different ice cream parlours, gift shops and restaurants that are around, this mall deserves at least a full day! I thing the mall has over 300 different shops..

..and then there is the worlds largest indor ski resort. The cafés by the skiing slope are called Aspen Café and At. Moriz Café - this is indees a Las Vegas on steroides! When paying a fee of 115 DHS (200 NOK), you get ski, cloths (except gloves) and a 2 hour ski-pass. However, the most exciting part of the entire ski-senter is sitting in a restaurant, sipping your coffee and watch all the arabs doing the bambi on snow. This will now be refered to sheik on snow...

View from St. Moriz Café

Ramadan

Weather: Partly clouded

Temperature: 33 C

Humidity: 51%

Unfortunately the end of Ramadan was delayed with a day due to some weird moon allignment. Our entire neighbourhood was staring towards the sky yesterday at 2200 - and suddenly it was announced that Ramadan was extended to Monday/Thuesday. This means that we still have to hide in the midle of the day if we want to eat #&"%¤/! (It is prohibited to eat and drink in public until 1900) What a strange ritual - luckily the temperature is not to high now, but not long ago people frequently got dehydrated at the yard, fainted and had to be picked up by the ambulance.

Muslims celebrating Eid - The end of Ramadan

My appartment at "London Crown", Bur Dubai

The entrance of my new nest..

Finally I have moved into my new apartment. It is pretty spacious, but the bathroom and the kitchen are not particularly modern. The rest of the apartment is ok, more than good enough for a 4 month period.

And here is the bedroom - luckily there are people that clean and do my bed every day. If not I guess my apartment would probably have looked like a big mess most of the time. But up until now I havn't spent much time at home...

At the beach

Weather: Sunshine
Temperature: 40 deg
Humidity: 66%

Finally my first day off in Dubai. In the Arabic countries the Sunday is a work-day, and the Friday is a non-working day ? a bit hard to getting adjusted to. Anyhow, finally we got to do some tanning at the beach.

After having overcome a horrible hangover from the Thursday night ? I moved from The Ramada hotel to my apartment in the ?London Crown? building. I stashed my bags in the room and darted over to the neighbour building where Christopher lives. We got in the car and headed for the Burj-al-Arab hotel.

The rest of the day we stayed on the beach with Ryno (the South-African) and a air-condition seller from Lithuania?! The ocean is still so warm that it hardly cools you down at all. But the temperature is dropping and it is becoming more and more comfortable staying outside.

The sun is setting over the islands constituting The World on Jumaira beach.

Dredgers pouring sand on to the banks of The World

Going to Fujairah

Weather: Sunshine

Temperature: 42 deg

Humidity: 77%

At four o'clock I was picked up by the agent at my Hotel and we started the 2 hour trip to Fujairah. As soon as we left the tallbuildings in buzzy Dubai, there was nothing more than sand and camels to see the next hour. As I was closing in to Fujairah a chain of mountains suddenly shot into the air. Behind the mountains Fujairah was hiding...

Glad I do not have this adress...

At the port I met with the general manager of Barwil Unitor Ship Service. This norwegian captain was clearly the king of the port and I got my own servant for the rest of the day. This guy carried my luggage, made me coffe and drove me aroud wherever I wanted to go.

Leaving the port of Fujairah - going to M/T Bergitta.

The evening I spent eating chicken curry with the Indian crew, then I got to bed pretty early.

The last days a crew of 45 guys from Bangladesh were de-mucking the vessel. The poor workers were diging crude oil and wax out of the cargo tankes in 40 deg heat. They worked 16 hours a day and were all sleaping on the vessel deck. The waste is put into small bags and elevated up to the deck - imagine working with this horrible waste every day...

Getting ready for inspection!

Early next morning the diving-team came out to the vessel. These guys were the most amazing sight - speedos and cowboy hats!

The inspection was performed - no damages were found on the vessel. As soon as the inspection was over I got a shore and drove back to Dubai.

More pictures can be seen if you press the high-lighted heading of this post!

Around Dubai

Last night Christopher picked me up at the hotel, and we went for a bit of sightseeing by car. The sun had already set, but there was a lot to see anyways. We drove to the famous Burj-Al-Arab - the hotel outside Dubai.
... well - gotta run. I am leaving for Fujairah in 10 minutes - will finish this post later...

.... Here we met up with Ryno from South Africa, he is also working for DNV in Dubai. We found a nice pub not to far from where our apartments are situated, and we spent the rest of the evening chatting and laughing..

My first inspection

Weather: Sunshine
Temperature: 37 C
Humidity: 60%

Today I had my first inspection of some modules for the new machine room for the M/S Bergitta. The welders had done a slack job and were ordered to re-weld larger parts of the stiffeners. I almost felt bad when I left, looking at the workers under their small parasols sweating as crazy and the temperature at nearly 40 degrees!

Here you can see traces of spurt steel from the welding. This is not acceptable! Re-grinding guys!!

Vessel being converted to an FPSO

First day in Dubai

Dubai Airport. The photo does not give any impression of the airport, but it is probably the most astunning airport I have seen in my life. Gold and palms everywhere. But they are currently building a new one with 6 runways - in comparison London Heathrow has two...

My hotel room. I am going to stay here until my appartment is ready next weekend.

I got in at the hotel at 2330 local time - was so tired that I just went stright to bed. I guess the carrying of thousend pieces of luggage from Stavanger to Dubai just wore me out..

Here I photografed a cool worker with a turban and fancy protecting goggles - before I was spotted by the yard security personnel and commanded into the entrance booth. After some appologies I was permitted to go without deleting the photos...

The Dubai Trade Center photograped from the yard

My desk in our office at the Dubai Dry Docks

An arabic Coka Cola