Blogs from Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Middle East - page 32

There are currently two road bridges connecting Abu Dhabi Island to the mainland UAE. Maqta Bridge is on the site if the original crossing point at the North of the channel where up until the early 60's you had to wait until low tide before taking your camel or Land Rover across. about two clicks to the South is the newer Musaffah Bridge (officially called the Al Ain Bridge but nobody calls it that). A third bridge just to the North of the Maqta Bridge is under construction but has been on hold for over two years now for reasons unknown to me. Both bridges are five lanes in each direction, and have 80kmh (50mph) speed limits on them. Maqta Bridge is actually two sperate bridges, each with a steel "suspension" style structure over it, whereas ... read more

OK, so now that I have a bit of time free I thought I would actually take the time to update you all as to my most recent crusades, which is really not much. So the last time you heard from me I was in France having a ball of a time. Since then I have started my 'new' job at the same company, where I am now based onshore as opposed to offshore. But as things work out, I have been spending a lot of time offshore. October brought about heap of rig moves. That pretty much sums that month up really. After completing one I was moved onto the next and so forth. The final one brought about a bit of disaster. The process goes once the rig is moved into place and the ... read more

I'm just sitting in my office going through my email when "clonk". The power trips out. We were getting power cuts during the heat of the summer when all of the air conditioning units were working hard, but it's only about 32C today and low humidity. It was the smell of burnt fur/meat that alerted us to the cause of the trip. Luckily I was there to deal with the situation, and by "deal with" I mean "get somebody to clean the electrically exploded rat out of junction box". I'm just glad I can share some of the glamour of life in the Gulf with you. PS - Thanks to everyone who emailed to let me know that the zombie-virus laden meteor that hit Peru last month was probably just a pocket of naturally occurring methane ... read more

Hallo erst einmal Nun fange ich auch mal meinen Travalbolg an. Ich weiß das er schon seit nun mehreren Monaten prach lag, das will ich nun aber ändern. Ich schriebe heute erst einmal über meinen aktuellen Standpunkt und was ich gerade hier so erlbte und mache. Später geht es dann auch mal zurück in alte Missionen und auch in die Neuen. Ich bin nun seit Anfang Juni hier in der Hauptstadt der VAE. Ich bin hier mal nicht in einem Hotel, sondern habe meine eigene Wohnung. Das heißt, ich packte mal meinen Koffer aus und stellte ihn in die Ecke. Hier mache ich mein erste großes Projekt: Just think big! Ind er Zeit in der ich hier schon war habe ich einiges gesehen. Abu Dhabi: Ich würde sagen eine interessante Stadt die es weiß sich dezent ... read more

It has been close to a month now since my last blog and it has really flown by despite being in the office most of the time. I am currently smack bang in between the UAE and Qatar on a job where we are drilling some holes to find out what is underneath the seabed to extend a runway on a small island close by. Now today has been a very eventful one (compared to the last 2 weeks of nothing happening) as first some scanning equipment that is pretty crucial in the operation of this job just decided to die on me after working 20min beforehand. That left me a little annoyed as it held back us throwing down the 20 tonne anchors. That took up a few hours but the most exciting part of ... read more