Week 1 of work done

My first official day of was 14th of August and it consisted of a fairly standard induction to Red Sea Global and how the site that I was now visiting each day for work operated.

The site is approximately 1 hour by bus north of where I am staying in Umluj at a site called Turtle Bay. The site itself is enormous and on land consists of the main offices for the project, accommodation for construction workers, hotel operators and RSG staff spread across the Construction Villages (circa 20,000 beds) and various types of apartment and townhouse accommodation. There are also a number of communal facilities such as entertainment centres, places to eat, gyms, swimming pools, shops (including a supermarket), a mosque and much much more. I am yet to see much outside of the offices though because I am still located at the hotel and it looks like I will be for some time to come.

Then when you go out to the islands there are circa 10-15 hotels and resorts under construction currently - google Shura Island development to get an idea of what is being built here. The scale is quite mind boggling

I am leading a team of 8 people at the moment made up of a males and females from NZ, Pakistan, Ukraine, India and Saudi Arabia and my boss is Irish so we are a bit of a United Nations for sure. The work looks to be really interesting so far and it looks like I will be applying what I have learned after 20+ years in NZ and the UK to a completely different asset type i.e. Accommodation. The change has been really refreshing actually and its great to be able to share my insights and experience with the team.

Life in the hotel is OK, the hotel itself is lovely, the food is good, the facilities are top notch but it is a fairly lonely existence some times once we get back here from site so I am enjoying the daily video calls to Joan and the girls a lot and they are helping me feel like I'm not as far away from home as I am. The weekends are particularly hard as there isn't much to do outside the hotel itself but we have the option to work every 2nd Saturday and receive pro rata pay for it as well as a additional 12 days annual leave per year so I will be looking to get onto that programme as soon as I can given that's what I'm here to do.

Yet to find any rugby coverage whatsoever so resorted to listening to the Newstalk ZB radio coverage of the 2nd test v Argentina, which I was very happy with after the dismal performance the AB's put in the week before in Wellington. On the plus side the time zone works quite well for EPL coverage so that is keeping me occupied as well. Czytaj więcej