Finally!

I have finally arrived and settled into my new digs at the Beach Palace in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. I have internet access from the aquarist office but not from my room so I will probably be doing most of my posts later at night (or later in the morning for those of you back home). Dubai was a whirlwind of a whole lot of nothing. I was there for 4 nights and really didn't do much other than workout, sit by the pool, read, browse several different malls and sweat. Not sure what the whole hubub is about Dubai, unless you have a ton of money - then maybe it's fun. When I go to a foreign country, I want to experience their culture and see stuff I don't see in the US. I saw alot of Starbucks, McDonalds, Baja Fresh, Pizza Hut, gas guzzling SUVs, upscale malls and traffic. I might enjoy the older areas with the souks - basically Arabian artisan markets with jewelry, spices, rugs and such and I'm sure the beaches are nice but I didn't get a chance to hit those up last week. Hopefully I can venture to those spots when I return in August. Also - there was a massive dust storm from winds off the straits so it seemed perpetually foggy/smoggy which made me not really want to be outside!

The set up here in Jeddah is nice. I'm fed 3 meals a day, someone cleans my room every day and does my laundry, so I can't complain. There's a nice pool right outside my door and a pretty complete exercise facility just a few doors down. I have a fridge stocked with sodas and water and a TV with a hearty selection of channels with American programming. It was a bit odd to watch Nightline this morning and the Today Show last night!

Essentially, I've been brought over to oversee and lead the set up and opening of Jonathan's new retail store in the city of Jeddah. It's going to be very similar to the shop in Sac but much smaller. Almost all of the equipment from Sac was sent over here on a cargo ship and is in pretty good shape, considering. I'll probably also be helping with the installation of a large private aquarium in another Palace just down the road from where we are.

The aquarium facility that our office is in in amazing! There are 2 crocodiles, about a dozen marmoset monkeys, a hedgehog, some lizards and iguanas, an amazing array of fresh and saltwater fish live corals and, or course, sharks! I'm already planning to get my own tanks back up and running when I get home! There is a moray eel here that is at least 4 feet long and about as big around as a soccer ball...he's MASSIVE!

Alright, I'm tired and have alot on my plate tomorrow when Jonathan is back at work so I best be going. I'll try to post a little each night.

One last thing...it costs about $30 to fill an 18 gallon gas tank...

Hauling Ass

We are making some good time to Spain. We should be there about 9 am tomorrow. The original estimates put us in port around 2 or 3 pm. I guess they were going to just use one engine but Captain Mike decided he just wanted to get there and get it over with so we're running both engines. I wanted to make sure that I did a water change in the tank while we were still at sea so that I don't have to make synthetic water, so I just did one. At 8:00 at night. I had thought I would be able to do it tomorrow, since we were going to be at sea most of the day but Matt called me to the bridge to tell me we were making better time than he had anticipated.

Here is the main reason I don't want to have to make seawater - that Reverse Osmosis unit still scares the hell out of me. The last thing I want is for that hose to pop off again while I'm not around and flood the pump room which will then seep into the galley and cause major problems. It takes about 30 hours to make enough RO water to do a water change, so I really don't want to sit in that pump room and babysit it for 30 hours. By doing a water change now, I was able to refill the reservoir with seawater which I can use for the water change on Monday. I will technically still need to do a water change on Thursday (which is the day Neil gets back) but at least it's only one. I figure I can run that RO unit for a few hours at a time for a few days and get enough water.

Anyway, we took off from the Port of Nice after getting our fuel and installing the fire suppression bottle at about 2pm. I tried to find reasons to wander around outside so that I could look for "charismatic megafauna" - otherwise known as big animals. I didn't see anything until this evening I caught a glimpse of a single dolphin in the light shining off the water from the moon. I watched a beautiful sunset from the Bridge where I was hanging out with the new officer Matt. Then I went to the aft deck to see the amazing full moon. I'm going back out there soon to check out the stars. I have a cool app for my iPhone that shows me the stars and constellations.