Homeward Bound

Matt: The flight is booked and I'm heading back to the UK for 10 days at the end of this week. My vacation will see the continuation of a saga that started here in Dubai. A year an a half ago Tim proposed to Julia at the unforgettable Burj Al Arab - Followed by champayne on the beach.. And now they are getting married. Should be a great day.

Second to that I wanted to congratulate my very good friends Garry and Michelle - and welcome Baby boy Turner to the World. A healthy lad was born on the 19th of April, 7lb 1oz - bang on time! I would have expected nothing less knowing Garry was involved.

Had a party weekend this weekend just gone. Naomi and I decided we hadn't been out dancing for a while, so we gathered the troops and hit the town, and the dodgy bars/clubs. Was a lot of fun - Rock Bottom was it's usual stick floored self.. It's not all posh hotels and valet parking you know??

Too Slack of late

Matt: Sorry!!! It's been a while as I've been busy. So here's the news in brief.

Week Past:
A group of us gathered together with growling engines eager to chew up the Dunes of the desert. Yep we went Dune bashing and camping again, it was an eventful trip. We had a couple of newbies so the going was slow, but after a few mishaps and a bit of training we were enjoying rolling through the desert in convoy. Sadly within 15 minutes of entering the dunes we had a casualty, One of the group was driving along a dune and lost traction, sliding sideways down the drift the tyre came of the rim. Arrgh! Ordinarily you can pump the tyre back up and force it to 'pop' back on, but this time the tyre was even off the valve, so no chance. Changing a wheel on sand is not the simplest task - but luckily I had a thick plank of wood for the camp fire which was perfect for the job. So we eventually carried on - much fun was had and all drivers did great. We set up camp at the back of eccles ridge, a high escarpment awkwardly jutting up from the dunes. The wind was high when we set down, making tent erection fun! But soon we had a fire blazing and food on the go...lovely!
Next morning we were up early and after cooking breakfast and breaking camp we headed to the dunes again to return back to Dubai. There few a few instances again where 4x4s were pushed, pulled or dragged free but we made good time.. until disaster stuck again - to avoid a collision on a sand ridge I had to pull my trust Paj into a severe ditch loosing the tyre in the process!! What rotten luck, this time not only was the Paj in a really difficult position but again the tyre was completely off the rim, there was a sand storm scouring us as we work and we didn't have a substantial plank of wood having burnt it all on the campfire.. (note to self, keep plank in car).
We finally managed to jack the car up and get out of there. Thanks to everyones efforts.




Last weekend:
Cris and I threw supplies in the Paj and headed for Fujierah, we hunted for a spot on the beach where we could set up the tent and chilled in the sun. It was an interesting site we found, amongst old ruined shacks just off the beach. The sun woke us early on saturday morning and I managed to snap some cool photos. Enjoy the pics.

Real Food, Real Time

Matt: Dante has launched.... Cris has spent 3 years planning and developing the idea and business plan of Dante - A healthy food delivery company, providing good quality, tasty sandwiches, salad and lunches to working professional - And the company is now live - with 12 staff the initial progress goes very well. I just wanted to congratulate her and tell everyone how proud I am that she has made this work - it's not been an easy road. Well done Cris -and the Dante team..

Check out the website for more information... www.dante.ae

Climbing Crane

Matt: Being my own boss as a designer creates a varied working week, admittedly most of the time I'm sat in front of this computer churning out work, but the work can be quite varied and interesting. This week however I had a spot at being a photographer.

DP World, one of my clients, needed some photos of one of their dock cranes in action. So I headed port side at Jebel Ali to see what I could capture.


Not the type of thing you'd hang on your wall, but it was a lot of fun and we got to climb to the top of the working crane too. These impressive yellow behemoths of the port loom far above you, perched on the dockside like a herd of wildebeest lined up drinking at the waterhole - with a travel arm that zips over head at frightening speeds hauling 40 foot containers around like they were empty cardboard boxes you can't help but be in awe of these machines and mans accomplishments.


Climbing these monsters was great, open metal stairs led us up 50 feet or so before we climbed into a very claustrophobic lift, barely big enough for 3 and ascended to conquer the beast. It was thrilling to be so high without a static structure beneath you, these huge cranes are on tracks that allow them to roll up and down the length of the container ships. And boy you could feel them move, they shake as the massive crane craddle trundles along the arm to collect another batch of containers.





Was great fun...