The reality is that most of us living here are hard working folks just like the rest of you. We enjoy the weather and benefit of the tax free living, but it's all relative, half the time we pay more for our every day items than in the UK, food, clothes, entertainment, rent (Ouch)...
Now the latest news, is Dubai World has defaulted on it's debt, ok so a few banks share prices plummet as do stocks of various Dubai based companies, Dubai World is not Dubai or a reflection of the entire UAE. We are all still working hard, saving hard, making the most of things. It's not like the country has ground to a halt and no one is spending money. We're still in the middle of a world wide recession, of course people tighten their belts and are more cautious until they are told other wise. But most of us remain unaffected and get on with it, people are still at war, people are still starving, people are still abused, people are still disabled, get over yourselves you may have lost a small percentage of your wealth, but a much larger percentage of the world is still without clean drinking water.
Steps down..
So onto less heated debates. The Cyclic month - I grew a beard, all round my face and then sculpted it into a ridiculous Mo for Movember. Kelly hated it but hey it's for a good cause, raising awareness and money for testicular cancer.
Next I swam around the Burj Al Arab, the iconic Dubai hotel in a 1km swim for MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières). This may not seem much to you, but I'm a terrible swimmer and it was really hard work for me. Kelly swam it in an impressive 12:00 minutes, I was lagging somewhat at 15:30..
Next Lenny and myself decided to get the kayaks wet. At the start of November we took them for a nice paddle around the mangroves of Um Al Qwain. We planned out a route that took us in a cyclic route of about 20km and planned to camp on one of the islands just over half way. We were fully loaded, the front and back holds of the kayak rammed with camping gear and I even had a desk bag clipped to the rear of my kayak. To say we were sitting low in the water is an understatement.
The tide was extremely low and when we reach the base of the mangroves we had to portage the kayak a considerable way, through very muddy shallow water, with hugh blue crabs to avoid, frisky little bugger too. This lost us a good hour which meant we had to readdress our camping options as we were unlikely to make the appointed island before dark. So I scouted a few islands and found an ideal campsite. We collected wood, cooked over an open fire and bedded down under the stars. It wasn't the most comfortable sleep.
This past weekend we decided to circumnavigate the Palm Jumierah, which was great, hard work in the open sea but we took our time and completed the 19k route in under three hours. Pretty satisfying. Now we know what's in store we can push it a bit harder next time.
Kelly, Scott, Cath, Lenny and Milo 'n Budd (The dogs) also went camping this weekend, we picked a off-road desert spot well away from the usual camping and dune bashing areas of the UAE's deserts. It was really good. A little exploration in the dunes to find a suitable spot , setting up camp and then the boys went to explore and have fun off-roading - we did a big loop through the dunes, luckily I marked the campsite on the GPS as finding it again would have been extremely tricky - it was hard enough finding an accessible route even with the GPS.
Now Christmas is fast approaching.. and the Family arrive on the 21st - all 9 of them - eeeek! Can't wait really.
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