In the middle of June we spent 5 days in Dublin, Ireland on a prolonged stopover from Abu Dhabi to Detroit. We'd never visited Dublin and it was a really cool introduction to a pretty darn good city.


We arrived all bright tailed and bushy eyed after our overnight flight and started to venture around town a bit slowly but surely over the next couple of days.. with almost perfect weather to boot!

There were a heap of buskers out and about in Dublin and they ranged from horrible to pretty darn good. One we did like was this pair of shoes.

But seriously this guy below was amazing. He played a guitar that was vertical and he seemed to pick at the strings like a bass rather than strum at it like a normal guitar but he used two hands to pick. The sound was very cool.


We did a tour of the Wiklow mountains and Kilkenny with PaddyWagon Tours. Quite a nice time with a driver who swore like a drunken Irishman. We saw a bit of the Irish country side as well as the little town where Bono and Mick Jagger have houses. The town is the only place in the whole of Ireland without a pub! Every town or city seems to have a historic castle and an old church and they somehow all want to charge you an arm and a leg to get in. These well traveled folk didn't fall for those old tricks but we did snap a few photos from the outside our euros don't travel very far in Ireland so we have to be careful what we pay to see from the inside and what we are content to observe from a distance instead!






Jen tried to find her Irish ancestors in Ireland only to find out she's Polish. Just kidding, but we couldn't find them. This is a note to anyone who wants to trace their ancestory in a foreign country: You need to know the name of a family member who lived in that country BEFORE you travel there... This below is as far as she got! I'm probably more Irish than you...


We arrived during the heat of the football world cup and the atmosphere around town was quite jovial. Although this was not shared by all...

And of course how can I forget that there was literally a pub on every street corner? The old saying lives up to its name and whilst we didn't dare do any pub crawls (although we should have as we could have walked 3 blocks and been too drunk to continue and returned to the hostel quickly), we did sample a few of the local brews. Smithwicks (pronounced Smiddicks) was a fav of mine and Jen liked the apple ciders.

Before we finish up here, we'll leave you some random images from the pubs we visited.

Despite the rising temperatures in the UAE, we still managed to get out to do some climbing in RAK. Unfortunately, Nick sprained his ankle earlier in the week so he came along to take some photos and appreciate the scenery and serenity of the mountains. It's little trips like these that make living in the city bearable, knowing that you can get out and feel like your a million miles away from the constant traffic and honking is priceless.


We started out early in the morning around 6 am and climbed almost until 2pm. We ran out of water early on, it's always amazing how you have a ton of water and you think it's enough...it's never enough out in the heat. Thankfully, with Nick not climbing, he offered to head back into town to get more water and some snacks. We did a few different routes and Clint my climbing partner for the, had his first go at lead climbing later in the morning. I think pictures always make climbing look like you could just walk up the rocks, but this is tough work guys.

A recent paddle around Lulu Island found us chasing 4 dolphins that added another hour to the 3 hour paddle....totally worth it!


Here are the dolphins:






out paddling and a close up of the closest thing I'll ever have to a tattoo...i think...here's my recent henna

The Kandora is the official dress for Emirati men and what a great way to mix a little local culture into stand up paddleboarding then having a Kandora SUP challenge. Surf Dubai hosted the event and we took first place in the relay with our friends Marc and Bonnie and managed to finish near the top in the individual race. Unfortunately, only the men were allowed to wear the Kandoras and there were no abayas for the few women that participated. Great fun and looking forward to getting the ball rolling with some more events here in the UAE.

While water polo in Abu Dhabi is non existent ( I know I should be working on getting that going), Dubai has a club that is growing. We went up there a few weekends ago for their first inaugural sea side polo tourney. It was great to get back in the water and play and I think the salt in the water helped us float a little better compensating for our lack of 'polo legs'. The only problem were a few waves that came through from the wake of boats passing by, but other than that a great setup along the Dubai coastline!

Yes they do have ice cream trucks over here in the UAE ! You won't find them driving around where we live in the city, but out in the little gated communities where our friends Pete and Christine live, you can hear them coming down the street playing music just like at home. We just had to get one!

A long awaited weekend away finally was cashed in last month as we visited the Miramar Resort in Fujairah. Fujairah is about a 3 1/2 hour drive from Abu Dhabi (with boards on top) and on the other side of the country where the mountains meet the sea. Nice change of scenery from our city life! It was an extremely late anniversary present but we still acted as if it was that weekend and managed to get a cake, a fruit platter and some sparkling....cider. We spent two nights hanging out on the beach, snorkeling around the reef where we saw a shark, some giant squid and lots of fish. On the way out we stopped at Khorfakkan and found some new places to paddle and a few friendly turtles to follow.