Blipfoto

I have been rather neglecting this blog recently. This is largely through apathy and a new and growing obsession with blipfoto. The idea is to post a new picture every day and there is a whole community out there to share with. Some of the posted pictures are quite spectacular, others simply tell a good story as you can also write a blog like journal to accompany the picture. It is all very addictive.

A good picture every day is very hard to achieve, but what it has made me do is take more photos, take my camera almost everywhere, and think much more about my photography.

My efforts can be seen at www.blipfoto.com/dubaidudes.

Blipfoto

Jan, unwittingly via one of her Facebook comments, has directed me to Blipfoto. Seems like a good idea so I'm going to give it a go. I did want to post the picture taken below yesterday evening. Unfortunately the rules of the site are that the photo has to be uploaded on the day taken.


The photo was taken from 'At The Top', the viewing gallery of the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa. As you can see, the viewing gallery is nowhere near the top. In fact, even though you are on the 124th floor, there are another 40 floors above you!

You can find my blipfoto efforts here.

Dates

The time has come to harvest the dates in our garden and I was out there playing with the kids in the pool and taking a few photos.

Lucy was fairly oblivious to it all ...

Theme Parks

No visit to Florida would be complete without a trip to a theme park. Which ones though? So many to choose from.

In the end we decided on Disney's Magic Kingdom first, followed by Universal Studios, both in Orlando. We arrived early at Disneyland, paid $14 for the car park and began the tortuous journey into the park. First was a ride to the ticket booth where we were lightened of $90 each for over 10's and $80 for the younger ones. Thereafter there was a choice of either ferry or monorail to the park itself. We chose the latter, the whole process taking over an hour and it was the same on the way back.



Once inside all reality is suspended. The park is aimed primarily at younger children - no big roller coasters here. The only one of significance, Space Mountain, is enjoyable enough but didn't really get the pulse racing. It was a busy day, the last Saturday of the Easter holidays, and the queues for everything were long, many taking 50 minutes or so for a usually short ride.

Prices in the park for food, drink and merchandising are on the high side of extortionate. You are a captive audience and I felt well and truly exploited.

Overall, I wasn't impressed and certainly wouldn't go back. The children enjoyed it, but Disney is a little bit too false sugary sweet for me.

Max meets the 'real' Mickey

Universal Studios on the other hand was an altogether better experience. Firstly, it was easier and cheaper to get in. Once inside, food and drink was all at normal prices as far as I could see and there was a good selection. Starbucks coffee for example, at $2, was almost half the price we pay in Dubai for the same thing!

We didn't bother paying the extra $99 each(!) for the express pass which helped you skip the bulk of the queues, but it wasn't necessary anyway as none of the queues were excessive. They had also, unlike Disney, gone to some length to keep you entertained whilst waiting - special Simpsons videos, for example, whilst waiting for the extremely good Simpsons ride.

The 2 big roller coasters were excellent, especially the Mummy one in pitch black with fire in the ceiling, backwards travel and clever special effects.

The tie-ins with the movies were good, especially Terminator, but some parts, like Jaws, were looking a little jaded.

Overall though, something for everyone here and an excellent day out.

The picture below is the current state of Universal Studios, Dubai. It consists of a gate, a site office and a whole load of empty desert as far as the eye can see. The park was due to open this year but appears to be another victim of the global slowdown.

The most fun you can have whilst puking your guts up ...

Meet Captain Fox Watkins, genial Floridian professional charter captain. For 47 years he has been fishing the waters off the coast of Florida. Today he had the uneviable task of taking me on my first ever sports fishing trip.



I have been fishing before; minnows in streams, the odd small trout, that kind of thing. But I have never been anywhere near sailfish, marlin, tuna and the big fish that lurk in the ocean.

First of all though, we needed fuel and I discovered part of the reason that deep sea fishing trips are so expensive. The 1500HP is very, very thirsty and needs a lot of maintenance. The fuel tanks hold 300 gallons which cost a cool $863 + 6% state tax to fill. The trip to Titusville and back, about 10 hours round trip had used 400 gallons of fuel - well over $1,000.



We started out catching some live bait. Specifically, this was sea bass about 8 to 10" or so that hung themselves eagerly on our hooks when we put small pieces of shrimp on. Ben particularly loved this, once catching three fish on one cast, and would have been happy to do this all day. However, we had bigger fish to fry and motored on to a wreck to look for amberjack.

Nico dropped over a couple of sea bass as livebait and was immediately in to a big fish. Unfortunately, I chose this moment to be overcome by the smell of diesel and the feeling of nausea from the rocking of the boat and was violently sick for the next hour or so - the first time I have ever been seasick and I felt embarassed that my sea legs had let me down.

Then it all went quiet for a while and we couldn't catch anything. Fox, who gives directions from the bridge on exactly what to do when, came down to see what was happening. He dropped a rod in and immediately got a bite, gave me a knowing look, and handed the rod to me. I wasn't prepared for how hard it would be. The fish fought like hell and I didn't think I had enough strength in my arm to reel it in. With help and encouragement from Nico I finally hauled him up. Nico gaffed him and put him quickly into the fish box. Fox guessed the weight at 35lbs - I was sure it was larger! - but it did get quite an appreciation from the crowd that gathers at the marina to see what has been caught.

The amberjack are part of Fox's deal; he has them made into what he calls fish dip or Smak and is sold locally. He gave us a tub and it is delicious - Lucy gorged herself on it.

So, we had to catch something for supper. Ben caught a couple of legal sized sea bass and then we moved on to troll for kingfish (also known as king mackerel). There were around 20 other boats in the area, mostly commercial fishermen. After a one hour or so of no bites, we landed three decent sized fish in quick succession. They have pretty nasty teeth and I was glad to see them safely in the fish box.

After that, we returned back to the marina for the obligatory pose with the catch. Fox then drew quite a crowd of tourists and pelicans as he demonstrated his filleting skills. The resulting fillets were then made into a superb meal by the restaurant in the marina for only $10 each. Great way to end another memorable day.

Shuttle Launch

5am, Easter Monday. T minus 1 hour and 21 minutes until the space shuttle blasts off on one of its very last trips into space. There are only 3 missions left after this one. It is pitch black, a little bit chilly. Everyone else is fast asleep but the jet lag has just caught up on me and I am wide awake and wondering what camera settings and which lens will be needed – there is no second chance for this photo op and, for me, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity that is too good to miss. The first photographer has just arrived with tripod (damn – didn’t pack mine). He has clearly done this before and at least is showing me the direction to point.

We are in Titusville Municipal Marina. Titusville is THE place to watch a shuttle launch if you can’t get one of the few public spots at the Kennedy Space Centre and you don’t work for NASA. Mind you, it is still at least 10 miles away but the area surrounding the launch is locked down by NASA and there is nowhere closer.

The first day of the holiday was a bit of a blur. We took the 17 hour night flight to Orlando and then drove down to Fort Pierce City Marina where Nico, Helen and LJ (friends from Dubai) are being most excellent hosts on their boat ‘Distinctive Too’. Three young kids on a plane for that length of time is nobody’s idea of fun but they all coped extremely well. The plane was full of what was mostly Americans returning home for Easter. A fair few of them, judging by their size and lousy haircuts, appeared to be soldiers returning for R&R as I believe they call it. I was struck by how big they all were, and Americans in general for that matter. As we were getting ready to take off a petite stewardess was struggling to close the overhead locker. The man mountain sat underneath it did not move a muscle other than to raise his arm slightly and easily push it shut.

From Fort Pierce we sailed up the intercoastal waterway for almost 5 hours to Titusville, watching dolphins play in the wake and jealously regarding the waterfront mansions. It’s not too hard to see why this is a popular holiday and retirement area. The boat is great, with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, internet connection and a big plasma TV. But this isn’t a boat built for pleasure cruising. No, first and foremost, this is a boat built for serious deep sea fishing. Nico takes this all pretty seriously, both in Dubai (where he has another boat) and here in Florida. Yesterday he caught an 80lb amberjack - comfortably bigger than Max!

At the back of the boat (I’m sure there’s a proper nautical term, but I am a complete landlubber) there is a big chair (‘the fighting chair’) with holders for 9 rods. You can even be strapped into it. Two of the rods, I am informed, are electric and cost a cool $1500 each. On the upper deck there are 6 more rods and giant pointed arms which can be set to trail bait. There are boxes to put fish in, a big tank full of livebait, and drawers and drawers of fishing tackle. This really is a professional sports fishing boat.

Anyway, back to the shuttle launch. It is now just after 6 and everyone has woken up and eagerly anticipating the launch. We have the local radio on giving commentary and countdown. And then, at precisely 6.21 EDT, the sky is no longer black as ball of incandescent light illuminates the whole sky and the shuttle is on its way to the space station. It is truly an amazing sight as it thrusts spacewards leaving a huge plume of smoke behind. A minute or so later the sound arrives, a gentle rumble at first and then a crack like a large clap of thunder. Suddenly, I am glad that we are 10 miles away.




After a few minutes it is gone and out of site. An absolutely amazing sight to witness first hand - the smoke lingers for a few hours, making strange shapes in the sky, but the memories will last forever.

Moths

The World Moth Sailing Championships were held at our local sailing club, DOSC, this week. These little boats are a beautiful sight as they climb out of the water and almost look like they are flying.

I was very fortunate to get a pass to go out on one of the media boats and take photos. Although the weather was poor, very hazy with poor visibility making for hard conditions to take pictures in, I had a great time.

I haven't had chance to go through all the photos yet, but here are a few that give a flavour of the event.

Catch up

Well, February has been and gone and we march on towards summer. There always seems to be a change in the weather before the temperature increases and we have had bad sandstorms and then rain over the past few days. As usual, carnage was inevitable - people here cannot drive in fog or rain and the drainage system, even on the newly widened Emirates Road, is woefully inadequate.

It has been the running season for me and I completed the Dubai 10k in my best time in four starts and then followed it up being part of a team coming second, in spite of me, in the Creek Relay. I also managed the RAK Half Marathon although I found the last few km incredibly hard, slowed almost to a crawl, and only just got under 2 hours (1 hour 56 mins). Rather like a woman during childbirth, I vowed during the race never to do it again. Now, on reflection, I'd like to do another one where I get some proper long distance training in. One thing it has given me is a new respect for anyone who has completed a marathon.

As usual, the children have all been busy. Lucy's gymnastics have really developed over the last term and we enjoyed watching her in a display at a school fayre. I got asked to take the photos and found it quite nerve wracking as the light was terrible, there was a distracting background and I was surrounded by other people with cameras.




Ben was in a big rugby tournament the weekend after at The 7evens ground. There were 19 teams in the U-8 from as far afield as Azerbaijan, Cairo, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and Oman. His team played really well and were unbeaten all day, with just one draw in the pool. Yet again I got asked to take the pictures after the pro who had been hired didn't turn up.



Max turned 5 in February and we celebrated with a party on the beach - one of the better aspects of living in a hot country by the sea.

Kidzania

I've just spent the day at Kidzania, one of the latest attractions to open at The Dubai Mall. It is essentially a scaled down replica of a real city where kids get to have a go at various jobs through role play.

We were there for several hours and didn't manage to get around and do everything (although this was largely due to the queues). Event though it was a little bit manic with excited kids running around, fire engines and ambulances wailing, I thought it was nicely done and the kids had a great time.

The Dubai Shopping Festival is also on for the next month. I have been waiting patiently for it to start for 3 weeks after the salesman in the Canon shop advised me to wait before buying my new camera, a rather snazzy Canon 7D. He certainly did me a favour as the camera was reduced by over 1,000Dhs (£150 or so) in the sale. I'm still working my way through the 270 page instruction book, and have barely got out of automatic mode yet, but already I'm loving the feel of it and the performance is streets ahead of my old Canon 400D.


First portrait with the new camera - Lucy watching TV by the window



Theatre school



The theatre itself was impressive



Lucy on the radio



Making pizza



Anyone for extra mozzarella?

Max the pilot (talked him out of being cabin crew!)


That's more like it - surgery was great fun



Max was a policeman clearing the way for the ambulance - suspect they regretted putting him in charge of the whistle!

New year's resolutions

Well, you start off with the best of intentions but generally they seem to be a bad idea in the end. Right now I'm feeling guilty about the wine I just drank and the chocolate I ate today. However, another of my resolutions was to sort out my photo collection from a rag bag collection of badly labelled CDs and back up disks into something useful in Lightroom.

I haven't finished yet, but lots of the old photos (especially of the children) have made me smile and brought back good memories as I shuffle them around. I thought I'd share this one that amused me when I saw it. We were out in Haworth, Bronte country, five years ago satisfying our friend Paul's annual need to take our children on steam trains in the midst of a freezing cold winter. The other picture of Paul, dragging us round some old train museum, will give a hint as to just how cold it was.

4th January

An auspicious day indeed. My wife shares her birthday with Isaac Newton, the accession of Sheikh Mohammed to being Ruler of Dubai and the official opening of the world's tallest building, the Burj Dubai.

Well, until today it was called the Burj Dubai. Apparently it has been renamed the Burj Khalifa after the President of the UAE and Ruler of Abu Dhabi. I don't suppose this is in any way related to the recent loan to Dubai from Abu Dhabi of a large amount of money to get them out of the financial mire.

Never mind. Whatever your views on Dubai, this building is an amazing feat of engineering. At 828m tall (3.5 x higher than Canary Wharf tower!) it absolutely dwarves anything else in the world. The next tallest occupied building is the CN Tower in Ontario at a mere 553m.

You can see the Burj from almost anywhere in Dubai and the view from our villa isn't bad. We did toy with going but there were 6,000 invited guests and we had learnt from our abortive efforts to see fireworks on National Day that getting there wouldn't be easy.

The reported 10,000 fireworks at the opening ceremony were very impressive, but by the time I'd scuttled up to the roof with my camera they had finished. The picture below was my best effort. Not as good as the one below that (from Getty Images by a better prepared photographer than me) which gives a bit more of an idea of what a spectacular event it was as the whole building erupted with fireworks.

Happy New Decade

Well, happy new year to the few of you still following our continuing adventures in The Sand Lands.

It was a very quiet Christmas for us here in Dubai. Unfortunately Janet had tonsillitis on Christmas Day, and only made a brief appearance out of her bed, so the whole day was rather muted. It was just as well we had ordered lunch as a take away from the Jumeirah Beach Hotel or it would have been beans on toast for lunch.



New years eve was rather more fun at a superheroes themed party at a friend's house. I was Superman (minus the muscles as Lucy astutely observed) and Janet was Catwoman. I'm not quite sure how Catwoman counts as a superhero but Penelope Pitstop and Duff Man seemed to think it was ok.