diverdutch

18 November 2011, Mongomo Tomorrow morning, I will hop in the truck or van, head for Bata, have lunch there before boarding the local airline to Malabo. Once in Malabo, I will be shuttled to a hotel, probably the Tropicana again, and try to get a room where it will be silent so I can sleep. Then, on Sunday, I have the whole day to kill before being taken to the airport for my 10.30 PM flight to Lisbon, via Abuja and Frankfurt. I will try to see what to do for the 4 hour layover in Frankfurt though I am sure the Germans will have something in store for me to see to it that I have to run to catch the last leg my flight. On a more pleasant note, the atmosphere in the ... read more

30 October 2011 Mongomo Well, here we are again. Another Sunday afternoon in EG and I am about to head into town to have another dose of culture, Mongomo style. One of the other contractors has a serious need for a new set of boots, no one else want to go to town, so I am tagging along. We will most likely have a drink somewhere though I am shifting to cokes, fantas and limiting my beer intake. Self preservation and all that, you know. Oh, the disco last night was pretty much as I had expected. My first visit here so everyone wondered how the newcomers would like it. It was about the same as discos I have been in around the world, from Indonesia to Haiti. I left early and got some sleep. Work ... read more

The call was not unexpected, only inopportune. We were in the middle of setting up the house we just rented...choosing furniture, arranging the purchase and installation of a new kitchen, buying furniture and last but not least, trying to get the paperwork on the new address. But, I had agreed to come out of retirement to help out with the HVAC project on the Presidential Library in Mongomo, Equatorial Guinea that my ex-employer had taken from an American general contractor. So, no matter how inconvenient it was, I was basically obligated to go. That was the beginning of September and now I have been in EG now for three weeks. The travel was set up by the general contractor's office (not our company's) in a very illogical routing. No, instead of sending me via Marrakesh (the ... read more

9 July 2011 Almoinha Well, I managed to get diving on Thursday. So, everyone join in and sing to the tune of "Sound of Music"...My gills are alive, I finally went diving, yada, yada, yada I arrived at the Anthia Diving Center and started to get my gear sorted out and to try on the semi-dry suit that I would need. I discussed the amount of lead I would need for the suit I was going to use. I chose to use a 12 liter tank as it was the smaller of the choices and proceeded to put everything together. The shop is about 100 meters from the dock where the boat was tied up. So, we loaded our gear onto large wire flats, something like Home Depot has, and headed of to the dock. We ... read more

29 June 2011 Lisbon Well, it has been 11 days since I last added anything to this blog so I guess I am well overdue. The hotel I chose to stay in was the cheapest that had individual rooms with shared baths. Some of the hostels with shared rooms were more expensive. At €18 per night, the Residencial Mar dos Açores is a bargain but it is pretty small and very basic. Noise is something that I am being allowed to live with. The school, CIAL, is in a building on the third floor (that is up four levels from the street as 0= ground floor, 1 = first floor, etc). I am getting back into European shape by walking the stairs every day which makes for two to three trips up and back down a ... read more

6 June 2011 Almoinha Laying on the beach in Sesimbra, the time seems to stand still. The waves gently lap the shore, the water is cold and clear and the bikinis are small. What more can a guy ask for? Oh, and the beer tastes good. A day at the beach gave us a bit of rest and now we are ready to attack the big stuff...Lisbon tomorrow, bureaucratic paperwork Wednesday and then house hunting to the north of Lisbon for Friday and beyond. Sometime in the middle of this, we have to look for an auto to buy. We stopped by another little restaurant in Sesimbra a few days ago and it was again a hit. Gerrie had the grilled mackerel and I had the grilled swordfish. And he was swimming in the ocean just ... read more