Marathon Day

The break's over. I'm back on the ship. My internet connection from the hotel was nice... for the half hour that I had it. The last couple days on the ship, I've been fighting through some fatigue, so I haven't written much. Now, I'm getting caught up and I've finished my notes from Friday! The first two days of liberty were the most eventful. I won't have nearly as much to say about the last three and I'll write about those three days together tomorrow. Unfortunately, I was terrible and didn't take hardly any pictures (and none that were worthwhile) on the beach. For now, all I have are my words. I seem to have plenty of those, however. So, I appologize for the length, but here are my adventures from day 2:

Friday (30 Apr 07)
The 0430 alarm was painful. After a quick splash of water and a few groans and stretches, the three of us tumbled out of the room, leaning on our bikes. By the time we got to the bike shop at 0520, we were ready to go. Wolfi met us there and opened up to bring out a rental bike for our fourth rider. Then we all mounted up to meet the rest of the group on the route. Within the first 100m of the ride, my small air pump fell out of its clip and was left behind. I was following a small group in a strange foreign city. There was not stopping or turning around. After a quick 5 mile jump across town, we paused at a spot along the planned route. Within a minute or two, the leaders of the pack were approaching. Soon, we were passed by a huge crowd of brightly colored riding jerseys, and we clipped back in to join the back of the peloton. It was a lively crowd of mostly European expatriates, mostly businessmen and women living in Dubai to capitalize on the current growth explosion. We rode for about 35km before a quick stop for a drink and snack. Then the group broke into two groups: those who would head back to wrap up a 70km (about 44 miles) ride, and those who would continue on for a 100km or 120km ride. Considering the furthest I had ever ridden in the past was about 20 miles (about 32km), I opted to head back with the "short" ride. This was my first ride with a large group. In fact, there were 77 riders with us! I didn't cause any major crashes and didn't get yelled at for poor etiquette, so I must of have done OK.

The Skipper opted for the "metric century" so kept going. The other two joined me on the short course. During the ride back, the growing wind was in our faces at about 12 mph. Unfortunately, the 20 mph pace on the first half had just about wiped me out and I couldn't keep up on the way back. About 10 miles into the return route, I "bonked", slowing down to around 12 mph (which was still about 24 mph worth of wind resistance for much of the leg). A very kind Brit named John noticed that I fell behind and he slowed up to pull me along (and presumably to keep me out of trouble). He let me draft behind him and I struggled to keep my pace up. We chatted a bit, as much as I could manage over my burning quads and calves. John stayed with me all the way to the turn off to return to the Bike shop, where our bags were waiting for us. Total distance for the ride turned out to be about 45 miles over about 2 1/2 hours. Not too bad. Here's a link to the route we rode.

Unfortunately we didn't coordinate our rendezvous with the Skipper very well. We returned to the bike shop, knowing that our bags were locked inside and that we would have to meet there to depart. But, the official start and end point of the ride was the "Lime Tree Cafe" about 6 miles away. The CO was riding on the 100km ride and Wolfi, who would have to open the bike shop for us, was on the 120km ride. Had we thought about it, we should have realized that both of them would finish at the Lime Tree and we could have waited for them with a smoothie in our hands. But we didn't think things through until too late and so ended up sitting on the curb in front of the closed bike shop for over 2 hours. The worst part was that our bags and street shoes were locked inside, so we were stuck in our stiff soled biking shoes the whole time. I walked around a bit and found my pump. In four pieces.

All of our transportation up to that point (about 20 hours worth) had been via taxi. As I mentioned, there were also buses set aside to move sailors between the ship and a couple select drop off locations in town. For more senior officers, there were also a handful of vans with drivers available. One such van was set aside for airwing CO's and XO's. Each CO had a day of access to this van. This just happened to be our CO's day for the van, so we coordinated for the driver to pick us up at Wolfi's after we all met together again around 11am. We took our bikes back to the hotel, cleaned up, and went back to the Lemon Tree for an awesome lunch. The driver then took us to the Mall of the Emirates.

We spent about 2 hours there, wandering through this mall that is probably the biggest I have ever been to. In those two hours, we didn’t even see a quarter of it. Granted, I spent a bit of time watching the indoor ski slope through a two-story wall of glass! I couldn’t make this stuff up. The mall is an odd mix of over-the-top ostentatious opulence and every-day retail monotony. It has every high end store you can image, straight from Rodeo Drive, and right in front of those shops where you can buy a AED 30,000 (that’s 30,000 Arab Emirates Dirhams) pair of shoes, you will find a “Sweet Factory” kiosk selling AED15/bag gummy noses. I passed on both. Much like the rest of the city, the mall is also a unique place to people watch. There are many expat’s, enjoying a taste of western culture (nothing speaks of western capitalism like 450 retailers under one roof), and many locals, dressed in everything from cut-offs to full traditional (and very conservative) arab garb. The mall also has male and female mosques. At the appropriate times, the typical mall music in the background is replaced by the melodic chant of the call to prayer. In my 5 days in port, I never once saw anyone in public on a prayer mat in response to the call. But no matter where I was, I could hear the call being broadcast from the nearest mosque.

While at the mall, I picked up a small case for my camera, and a cell phone. Why in the world would I purchase a cell phone?! Check this out. The phone ran me about AED99. The SIM chip was about AED120. I purchased AED200 worth of pay-as-you-go cell minute cards. No contract. No more fees (other than more minutes if I want to buy the cards). The rate to the states is about AED2 / minute. So, for about AED420 (or about $114), I now have 100 minutes of cell time to call home. And I can call whenever I’m in port, from where ever I want! That’s pretty cool! I never would have conceived of such a privilege in a foreign port. Wish I could take credit for the idea.

The van picked us up from the mall, and delivered the group back to our hotel, where I quickly found my way down to the pool for a swim. Man was that nice. I’ve been starting at water for the past two months… beautiful blue 75 degree water. But no swimming. The pool at the hotel was about 100 yards long, with walkways bridged over it. In the deep end was an island, about 30 ft in diameter, mostly made of fake rocks, but it included a small patio where a pair of lounge chairs waited for anyone who would swim across to relax. I swam a couple laps around the island, just enjoying the warm pool and the sky overhead. After the swim, I headed into the spa to jump into the Jacuzzi for a while. While in the spa, a group of us discussed our dinner plans. Turned out, we already had a 2045 reservation at Shoo Fee Ma Fee, a Moroccan restaurant at Medinat Jumeira (an Arabian-styled open air market located along the beach a little south of Dubai).

At Shoo Fee Ma Fee, we enjoyed an epic 2 ½ hour multi-course meal (I lost count of the dishes they brought out). Today was the celebration of the Prophet Mohammed’s birthday, so alcohol was not served anywhere in the city from 1800 Fri until 1800 Sat. It’s a good thing, too, because I think if there had been a glass of wine with that meal, I certainly would have passed out from food coma, exacerbated by no sleep and a very long day. As it was, I slept soundly in the back of the van on the way back to the hotel.