On Thursday night Darrell returned from his week long stay in the UK and started sweating before we even left the airport. I don't know why, temperatures have plummetted to a cool 30 degrees...
On Friday morning, we had to be at the Burj Al Arab by 7am - this is in Dubai, so necessitated a very early start and breakfast in the car. The reason for this unwonted early morning activity was a charity swim around the Burj Al Arab island - and I must make it clear immediately that only Darrell was participating, the rest of us were mere spectators. There were several different groups of swimmers, and Darrell was in the non-competitive group. Has anyone ever known Darrell to do anything non-competitively? Anyway, he performed well, finishing in the top 20 (there were a couple of hundred swimmers) and as I rushed forward to kiss and congratulate him, he collapsed like a beached fish (whale?) on the sand... in his efforts to finish with the better swimmers, he had pushed himself a little too hard and was feeling a bit worse for wear. After a couple of minutes however, he revived (to my relief) and then was able to join the kids playing in the waves on the exclusive beach that we had been allowed to access for the duration of the charity races only.
Thence back to Abu Dhabi, and to view the Dragon Boat Races that were being held on the creek. These races use long boats with (believe it or not) dragon heads and tails. They have 20 paddlers on board, and one drum-banger (I'm sure he has a better name, but I don't know it!). They speed over the water quite impressively, it looks like hard work but a lot of fun.
At the races we discovered, to our joy, a chap selling kayaks - something for which we had been looking ever since our return from SA. One thing about AD, if at first you can't find something, you just wait patiently and soon enough, you'll trip over it. So we bought 2 of the brightly coloured things - small enough for the boys to manage on their own, but big enough for an adult to squeeze a kid on board with him.
After all this excitement, we had to rush to the other end of Abu Dhabi, to the Royal Marina Health Club, for a birthday party. This club is in an extremely exclusive area on a man made island just off Abu Dhabi island, connected only by a single bridge just about sea level. Don't know what will happen when the sea levels rise... The residential area is gorgeous, but sadly has no beach - due to the exposed position, the island is bordered by retaining walls, not golden sands...
Well, that was our Day of Rest....
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