The Super-sized Sea and Its Colour

I am supposed to do my usual evening swim today. As I look out at the horizon and assess the water, I decide to skip swimming today. The water is too rough and the weather is just too windy and cloudy. It is not bright enough to allow good visibility in the water. So I climb up Lucky and sit on it to watch the sea instead.

The sea is a fascinating and an intriguing scene to see. It gives me the chance to zoom out and see the big picture out of life. I scan through my mind to spot on the things that stir of late. At work, there is this loud Egyptian engineer who challenged my authority after I challenged his way of work. The confrontation was unpleasant and he really pissed me off. At home, my apartment is a mess. There is a pile of laundry waiting. There are so many things to be picked up on the floor and there is so much sand on my balcony after the last sand storm. I hate it when I have to tip toe in my own living quarter. There are my dying orchids. My age, how I have aged and the many undone items in the mental list. With the sea is in front of me and its vastness, my issues are now becoming too tiny to be mentioned.




In the mood of seeing the big picture with the sea in front of me, I have down-sized all the above issues and thought about the report I read recently in the news. The 'red tide' has hit the northern coast of UAE. It has been reported that a desalination plant in Ras Al Khaimah has been sealed off as a result of the spread of the 'red tide'. In this arid desert land, if we can't have water from the desalination plants over a long period of time, it can be a threat to life sustainability. Of course, the red tide is over now in Ras Al Khaimah and I see no sign of it from the waterfront of Dubai. It is a blessing but there is a need to know more and be aware of what might come to revisit our shore in the future. So I google for the answers for some questions that I have.

No matter how big you think are and how big your problems seem to be, you're still small next to the sea.

What is 'red tide'?
It is a naturally-occurring, higher-than-normal concentration of the microscopic algae Karenia brevis (formerly Gymnodinium breve). This organism produces a toxin that affects the central nervous system of fish so that they are paralyzed and cannot breathe. As a result, red tide blooms often result in dead fish washing up on Gulf beaches. When red tide algae reproduce in dense concentrations or "blooms," they are visible as discolored patches of ocean water, often reddish in color. "Red tide" is a colloquial term used to refer to a natural phenomenon known as a "harmful algal bloom" or "HAB". The term "red tide" is being phased out among researchers for the following reasons. The red tides are not necessarily red and many have no discolouration at all. They are unrelated to movements of the tides and a wide variety of algal species are known bloom-formers.

What can cause it?
Red tide is a natural phenomenon not caused by human beings. When temperature, salinity, and nutrients reach certain levels, a massive increase in Karenia brevis algae occurs. No one knows the exact combination of factors that causes red tide, but some experts believe high temperatures combined with a lack of wind and rainfall are usually at the root of red tide blooms.

Can we control it?
There are no known ways that humans can control it, but many scientists around the world are studying red tide at present.

How does it affect mankind?
It can cause eye and throat irritation due to the high concentrations of the algae. It's usually okay to eat fish, crabs and shrimp during a red tide bloom because the toxin is not absorbed into the fleshy tissues of these animals. Oysters and other shellfish such as clams, mussels, whelks and scallops can accumulate red tide toxins in their tissues. People that eat oysters or other shellfish containing red tide toxins may become seriously ill with neurotoxic shellfish poisoning (NSP). Once a red tide appears to be over, toxins can remain in the oysters for weeks to months. It has the potential to destroy the corals, reduce the fish population and cause losses to the fishermen.

Image from Google : An aeriel view of 'Red Tide' approaching the coastline

Image from Google : Another aeriel view of the 'Red Tide' attack

Image from Google : The red sea caused by the 'Red Tide' phenomenon



"No phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon" Niels Bohr.

Add Life To Life

"Add Life To Life" is the tag line for Du, one of the telecommunications service provider in the UAE, which I subscribe the cable TV and internet. Unlike Astro, the cable TV services are better since they are not bothered by the rain that may cause interruption. The charge is pricey but it is compensated with newness and varieties in the subscribed channels. One thing that is worth mentioning here, Du is very stringent and efficient in its internet censorship. If you google for any words that linked to pornography, instead of finding images that make you go ga-ga, you got a blue & white screen with the advice, "Add Life To Life". It means porn sites are blocked here for they are seen as non-value adding to life. Some of the blogs and web-sites that condemn the government are also blocked. Some social networking sites like the escort services are blocked as well. However, sometimes we can get the access to the newly launched porn sites with the less suggestive names for their addresses; but after a couple of days, they are blocked eventually. It means, there are eyes out there screening the online traffic coming to the emirates and making immediate report for anything that is not consistent with the moral, cultural and social values of the UAE.

This Du tag line can also be found in its commercial posters. The one I like the most is the image of an old Arab man holding up his hands in a gesture of appreciation to the Almighty in the showering rain. It is an inspiring image. The kind of rain I was anticipating a few days back.

Every time I pay my bills at its outlet in Ibn Battuta Mall, I would look at the poster and relate it to the same euphoric feeling when I watched the the ending of Shawshank Redemption, one of my most memorable movie based on Stephen King's novella. The rain and the free man create the iconic image of adding life to life.

I was troubled today when I saw Orked in her sorry state. Her two white flowers had withered and faded away. I was imagining her like the skin-head Amani trying to prove something; but it is not something that I like. I decided that she is not suitable to be kept indoor. So I took her to the balcony. When I placed her at the centre of the coffee table, it occurred to me that one is such a lonely number. She needs another life to add hers. Something had to be done about it.

I went to Dubai Garden Center to get some friends for Orked. It is a happening place with so many healthy and beautiful plants and trendy gardening gadgets. This place is well kept and managed by the people who take pride in their business. As I entered the building I felt it was like a mirage in the desert.

I bought 2 pots of orchid plants, one with the yellow flowers and the other purple. I name them Ning and Violet, respectively. Recently a celebrated blogger had commented that a plant needs to be sung to, so I figure Ning can do the singing for Orked. While Violet the biggest among the three can be Orked's guardian against naughty bugs (that might sneer at Orked's flowerlessness) and the wild wind that comes with the uninvited sand. The three sisters are placed on the coffee table at the balcony. I can see them from my bed when I wake up in the morning. Outside, their purpose is to display their beauty, to promote their deceptive pollination, and not to add pollution since the don't have pollens to spread. Hereunder is an excerpt from an interesting article about orchid's sexual deception which escapes Du censorship. It explains orchid plants being kinky and naughty by nature.

"The great majority of animal pollinated plants secure the services of their animal pollinators by providing food rewards such as nectar or pollen. However, orchids are exceptional in that perhaps as many as one third of the 30,000 or so species achieve pollination by deception. That is, they lure animal pollinators to the flower by false promises of food, but do not provide any. Most of these species are ‘food deceptive’ falsely advertising the presence of food by bright colors and sweet scents"

I have also adopted the green brothers to become the pioneering members of my little nursery at the corner of the balcony. When these brothers are bigger and stronger they will be kept indoor to supply the oxygen that I need in the bright daylight of Dubai winter.

Well, this is the story from my balcony. It serves to accentuate the original version of "Add Life To Life", nothing else.

Wet Dreams In Dubai

It was in the news that thunderstorm has developed in the offshore areas and moving northwest to southwest across Dubai. In the wee hour, when most of Dubai residents were in the middle of their dreams, probably dreaming about the upcoming big year-end bonus or exotic New Year escapade, the storm clouds reached the space above us. In this early morning, before the sun showed up from the horizon, the clouds shed the rain. For someone who is missing the rain in this desert city, this is big news. For the trees, plants and the grass in Discovery Gardens, the raindrops are the rare treats worth the anticipation. To our disappointment, it didn't rain cats and dogs like we had hoped for. Instead, it rained like wet dreams. Not enough to soak and shiver us, but just enough to leave the stain. As I walked across the parking lot this morning, there were water marks and little puddles on the road. The dust-mixed raindrops left dotted marks on the parked cars. Nevertheless, the little rain left us with the chilly morning breeze and the much needed fresh air to start another day. I took a deep breath. Life goes on.

The Weeds and Their Wonder

The weed has been an intriguing subject of my recent interest, besides running, recuperating and working in-between. I'm not referring to the dried weeds that make a junkie goes high which, a friend of mine had found the best kind in Amsterdam. Those are not allowed in Dubai. It's about the living weeds that have been filling up the space of my previous blog posts and the little garden in front of my building. In the vacuum of my time and in the episode of nothingness, I had tried to search for their identity but instead, I found a description that made me toying with thoughts and reflecting the reality.





"Weeds, as a class, have much in common with criminals. When not engaged in nefarious activities both may have admirable qualities, a thief may have been an affectionate husband and father outside business hours, an aggressive weed in one environment may be a charming wild flower in another" - The New Naturalist : Weeds and Aliens






In simple terms, a bad guy can be good, an ugly guy can be beautiful and perhaps vice versa. This makes it difficult for a cop to trace a suspect, a judge and his jury to reach a verdict, and ordinary people like us, to make our judgment on somebody, on something. Still, in our daily lives, in the era of Ordinary-Joe-has-something-to-say-and-blog-about, we judge easily, we reason conveniently and we get satisfaction making our opinions heard, loud and clear, though they might be far from the truth. The lesson that I have learnt about the existence of the weeds is, what we see, hear, read and talk about may not be exactly what it really is, we have blind spots, our object has its camouflage and there is political stimulus. Life is a continuous great discovery, for those who don't jump a little too early into conclusion. On the other hand, life is a shameless stage of contagious hate and disgust for those who are already stuck in the fallacy.





Today, the weeds in the Discovery Garden, as if they had served their purpose, ended their showcase. Like primadonas taking off their wigs at the backstage, their glorious growth has been reduced into the shape of alien eggs erected on the sand. It would take some time before I see them again in their best form.

In the meantime, I have 39 days before completing a big deadline at work, 42 days before my wife & kids coming for a visit, 55 days before getting into the new year, 58 days before flying home and 70 days before running in my first marathon.