The last few months...

XMAS AS IT SHOULD BE…

Xmas time brought about the need for me to get back to NZ as I wasn’t doing what I did last year (not by choice) where I spent it offshore in Iran on one of the crappiest boats you can imagine. So I put leave in to make sure it happened this year, and what do you know, IT HAPPENED!

So on the 20th Dec I trundled back to NZ to surprise the family in turning up, only to find someone had already informed the family that someone in fact was not working which I told them I was, so the surprise turned into a semi surprise. Anyway, my little bro picked me up at the airport and made the trip south to Cambridge. When I arrived the weather turned it on for me as it had been raining previously and the sun was a bright as ever which made the trip even more worth while. The first few days there brought about Ben Martin and his recently acquired girlfriend coming over to stay. It was fantastic to catch up with him again and meet his other half and was even better seeing him wakeboarding naked on Lake Karapiro, past a family with small children, having a picnic, with a distraught look on their faces. I do have some exceptional photos of the event but with the risk of exposing him with a promising Navy career, I will hold onto those photos until he gets kicked out of the Navy on his own accord.

Xmas was a perfect day spending it with the family in the glorious sun and on the 29th Dec the two frenchies, Alex and Julia turned up to stay with me for a while while they planned to see the North Island of New Zealand. So the first day I took them to Mt Maunganui to enjoy their first real swim at a NZ beach despite being here for almost 18 months now. Dunedin doesn’t count somehow. The next day it was decided that we would head down to Tauranga for New Years, so Emily Todd turned up at my place as well with her new boy toy and we headed down to do what everyone else does on New Years Eve at a friend of Emily’s.

The next day we headed over to Rotorua as Julia desperately wanted a mud bath. We went and had a look at the geysers but never got round to bathing in mud as most things were closed. We headed back to Cambridge that night and the next day I took them wakeboarding and biscuiting on Lake Karapiro which was a lot of fun for everyone. Couldn’t convince Alex to get naked like Ben did though…. The next day we (my sister included) all headed out to Raglan to enjoy the beach and surf and have a look around the coast. Again the weather turned it on for a perfect day and we pulled out Alex’s kite and had a run around on the beach with that.

As I was due to leave in the coming days, Alex and Julia headed off to the Coromandel while I started my 930 page book my sister gave me for Xmas. On the 7th Jan I headed back to Dubai to start work again and when I arrived was sent straight to a vessel to mobilize the equipment for 5 days straight. The other day George Bush was here on a visit and because he is SO IMPORTANT, almost all of the roads were closed in Dubai so his 400 car motorcade could pass safely through without him having to stick his head out the sun roof. So because of one person, that disrupted an entire country (I’m serious when I say a whole country) because no one could move anywhere because Dubai is central to everything, so many people couldn’t travel, myself included. A few weeks ago it rained (and had been for the the previous week) so as there is no drainage on the roads, puddles, no lakes, no oceans formed on all the roads and caused traffic to stand still for hours on end. After departing for work, when I moved 500m down the road in about 45min I decided to turn around and head back to the hotel where I later got a phone call to say work had been called off for the day. Sweet! Who knew rain could cause so much traffic.

After the I went on a job on a NZ boat which was another new experience for me as I didn’t know there were any NZ boats this far out. It also came with a NZ crew and food that was very very good. Even better than the hotels food. Once the job finished I was back in the office for a few days and in that time Johann took me out into the desert with my jeep and had a bash around the dunes learning the basics of off-road driving. A great time was had and after that I headed back to the boat and departed for another job. That has recently finished and I am now in the office for a solid few months at least and I am now in the process of looking for a place to live. (I may have said that a few times before but I actually am now)

So that is the low down on me for the last few months. I know most of you have given up looking at this as I am hopeless in keeping this updated but have faith in me! I’ll may post another thing soon.

Hope everyone is having fun wherever they are, I see a lot of people are going on their OE so if anyone is passing through Dubai, give me a yell!!!

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