Dive Trip to Al Jebayl

A recent overnight scuba diving trip out of Riyadh to Al Jubayl on Saudi Arabia's east coast. We headed two hours out to sea to a small sandbar island off which was a large coral reef. The reef itself appears for the most part bleached, dead and or dying but even so it still had plenty of marine life and skeleton corals to swim around. Good finish off for our open water diving course we had all be working on for the previous few months.

Mega picnic in Al Khobar

Al Khobar corniche.

Thanks to Deep Blue for the scuba shots!

Long day for the old fellas.

Phil.

The Boss.
Now unfortunately ex-boss, he has returned to Australia and will be sitting on the beach at Noosa Heads right around the time I am writing this from my lounge room in Saudi Arabia.
Phil was the man, schooled me into life in Saudi Arabia, schooled me in squash (although he did let on that he was once junior squash champion 2 days before he left), always had a thousand stories to tell, and something cheeky to say to all. He first came here when he was 23, which happens to be the same age I was when I arrived. He vows this last 2 year stint in Saudi he has now completed will be his last. Phil was always keen for a bbq and late night talks about 80s and early 90s pop rock, I may have pretended to know what he was talking about or more than one occasion. A night out with Phil always concluded the same and at roughly the same time 2am was Phil's limit and at precisely then he would fall asleep anywhere! One night he left his camera on the table and as the night concluded as it always did I sneakily snapped some shots off with his camera, ran to my house uploaded them on my computer, deleted all evidence that said photos had been taken and carefully placed his camera back on his living room table. There was a hint of a tear in his eye when I presented the photos framed to him the day before he left.
Farewell Phil.

Riyadh Sandstorm 30/4/11 - Saudi Arabia

The sandstorms have been coming on a weekly basis for the last couple of months, this one yesterday the 30th of April was by far the worst I have seen here yet. They hit without warning and they hit fast, this one I walked inside changed my shoes and shirt and walked back outside less than 3minutes later with intentions of playing some squash with my boss only to be slapped in the face with a skyline from Mars and enough grit in my eyes and lungs to take down small children...

Riyadh - Saudi Arabia

The Kingdom Tower (left) and The Al Faisaliah Tower (right)

Our little compound view from top of the water tower in the center of it.

Some shots from atop a large tower we have situated in the middle of our little compound in the Northern Suburbs of Riyadh. Pretty sketchy ladder climb up this thing, I'm hardly comfortable in high places but even my boss Phil said he was checking his pants after the climb down. From up there you can see into the center of downtown Riyadh. The Kingdom Tower (the one that looks like a bottle opener) and the Al Faisaliah Tower (the ballpoint pen) are the two prominent buildings you can see in the pictures.
Riyadh has SOME pretty impressive architecture but thank goodness this place is not built on a fault line! (There is also a lot of extremely tacky architecture, they seem to be stuck in a bit of an 80's early 90's glitz and glamour themed state). If you could see the construction of some of these buildings you would know that one earthquake here and the whole city would literally fall apart. The brick work holding some of these buildings together is a little unnerving...
Our compound I have called home for the last 7 months pales in comparison to others the Americans and Brits have built for themselves here, their compounds are actual towns of their own surround by prison style walls and armored cars, guards and metal detectors. Set foot in them and you walk into another country, a little piece of the western world sticking out like a thorn in the side of surrounding Saudi's, part of life in Saudi.

Work - Saudi Arabia...

An arterial line leak and I get soaked, not stoked.

Saudi Campfires...

Camp out in the desert don't forget your marshmallows, just don't let a Kiwi cook it for you, or let me try put one out for you injuries may follow...

Saudi Arabia - Desert Living...

Desert.
Oil.
Saudi.
Money.
Kelas.