Arrived

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Hey all.
Well finally thought I would put fingers to keyboard and give an update as to what's been going on.
I am now in Bahrain, after a week in Kuwait doing the last of my orientation, I have been down here for about two weeks now. Really enjoying it. It's a hell of an interesting place and though I can honestly say I wasn't interested in the Arabic culture, that has changed pretty quick. Though I can tell you, their driving scares the hell out of me.

My stay in Kuwait was a bit of a whirlwind visit. I got off of the plane, but my luggage didn't. I scrounged some things from the uniform store there to get me by but they were all just a size too small. Bloody little army punks. Start to carry real man sizes! Did some interesting stuff there but a lot of it was rehashing stuff that we did at Sydney on my week there.

We only have a small cell here, but the guys are pretty good. The accomodation is phat! Picture a four bedroom town house, small pool. Ensuite in each room. Big. Real big. Well, in our compound we have two of them. And a small building with five transit rooms for the other units we support hehehe. It's really rough. But really. We work pretty hard. We look after the ship who is up here (usually one at a time) as well as another unit of Australians in the area. there always seems to be a drama or disaster that is our fault or up to us to fix. However our boss has a definite mentality of "When there's work on, do it. When there's no work on, relax" so I have been lucky that way. We don't have an official weekend or designated day off (the Bahraini weekend is Friday Saturday though which plays havoc when we are trying to plan and organise stuff for the ship) but we try and take half days on Friday and Saturday, just to break up the monotany.

We travel quite a bit too. Most of our equipement comes into Fujairah from Australia so we have to go down there about once a week. Fly to Dubai, jump in a hire car and drive for an hour to get to the unit there, before driving back to Dubai to fly out again that night. Been there twice now and still haven't seen anything of the place. We are trying to swing a longer, overnight visit in the next few so I can see the place and do a bit of shopping lol.

My job is pretty much managing the stores requirements for the units, anything they need they come through me. Most of the regular stores are held onboard however anything urgent they come through me to Australia. So I get call at all times of the morning or night from the ship or Australia regarding parts that are in transit or lost (bad. Very bad). People get to work in Australia and think "oh, that item for the ship in the gulf, they need it now. I will just ring the liason in Bahrain and tell him what it's up too". So they call me. Usually around 1 in the morning. I have started expecting it now. One idiot rang me the other day to tell me that there was nothing coming. NO SHIT! I hang up on him pretty quick. Also I handle the mail for the two units we have. Usually two or three bags either way per week for each unit. I have to repack and repaperwork every bag and keep the logs up to date. Mail is one of our biggest priorities as we try to keep the boys and girls in touch with home and stocked up on timtams so that morale is helped. And I tell you. No mail, stand from under!

Well I should get back to it. I am flying to Fuj again tomorrow I have have some packing to do. Stay out of trouble all of you and I will talk to you later.

Damo

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