Dubai, United Arab Emirates
March 29, 2009 Sunday
Webcam from the Bridge of the Queen Victoria is HERE.
The Strait of Hormuz
The Victoria steamed across the Indian Ocean toward Dubai with Iran off to our north. In the middle of one night, we passed a U.S. Aircraft carrier as we approached one of the most critical waterways in the world — the Strait of Hormuz. The Strait of Hormuz is one of the most heavily defended in the world because one-third of all the oil in the world passes through it.
The afternoon before we arrived in Dubai, the Captain told us that the Victoria was surrounded by forty U.S. naval ships patrolling the area and five different American navy groups. Iran has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz if it is attacked by either the UK or the U.S.. Clearly, if trouble breaks out anywhere, this area will be a battleground – and the United States is ready for the fight.
Memo to Captain: Drive the ship a little faster, big guy; let’s get out of here.
Dubai sits on a tiny sliver of land with Iran on its north. Together with six other Arab tribes, Dubai formed the country of the United Arab Emirates in 1970. If you think oil is propping up Dubai, you’re wrong – oil accounts for only 5-percent of its annual gross national product. Today Dubai is building like crazy and attracting international businesses with its innovative free zones.
In fact, doing business in Dubai sounded so good to Dick Chaney that, while Vice President of the United States, his U.S.-based company moved its headquarters from the United States to Dubai. What a guy.
Dubai is supposed to inspire awe. The architecture, some of it, is stunning, and certainly the Arab leader behind all of this has courage. In a country of only 5-million, he has run up a huge debt that he thinks he can repay by turning Dubai into an international playground for the super rich. Dubai is spic and span, like a Singapore with sand.
The day we arrived, Dubai had just sent 300,000 foreign workers home and most construction had ground to a stop. The ever self-promotional Donald Trump has reportedly cratered on his Dubai project. Dubai had built itself a tourism-based economy in a world that may be in economic free fall. Who is going to fill up all these hotels, ski that indoor mountain, or live on all those islands in the ocean that are built in the shape of the world? And, by the way, if global warming is a reality, isn’t Dubai is going to be an underwater country?
It will be interesting to see how this place looks in five years.
The Victoria docked in rain just behind the old Queen Elizabeth 2, which now is owned by a Dubai company. The QE2 will supposedly become a hotel like the original (1934) Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA. The QE2 arrived here last November and has just been floating at the dock while project after project in Dubai are cancelled; many wonder if she will just rust away and be broken up like the original Queen Elizabeth which burned in Hong Kong Harbour in the early 1970s.
Surprisingly to me, the QE2 was much smaller than the Victoria (70,000 tons versus 90,000 tons). Sitting side by side, the Victoria dwarfed her older sister. No one got close to the QE2 to have a good look, though. The dock was roped off and Victoria passengers were warned there would be no tours allowed.
We took a morning tour that basically rode around the old and new Dubai. We saw a mosque, walked the beach and had refreshments and a bathroom break in a swank hotel. A building, already the tallest in the world, continues to knife upward until recently and reportedly will top out at ½ mile (2,625 feet) to 3,000 feet when done.
The rain gradually abated. The tour ran longer than expected when two people vanished at the Gold Souq (Market). After waiting for almost twenty minutes, the tour director left them behind. Nearly half a hour after the ship was scheduled to sail several people came running down the dock and perhaps were the same people.
Internet proved frustrating. Free high-speed wireless on the dock was promised in Dubai, but no one could connect to it. There has been no reliable, or acceptable, Internet in the last five ports. Singapore may have been reliable, but the government wanted to collect intrusive information, including passport numbers, before allowing anyone to log on. The on board Internet is pricy and slow forcing passengers to flee to shore when the ship docks.
PHOTOGRAPHS
Iconic hotel on Dubai beach.
Dubai city view from The Victoria
The Victoria docked behind the smaller, empty Queen Elizabeth 2.
Indoor ski slope in Dubai Mall.
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Tags: cunard, dubai, indian ocean, iran, iraq, queen victoria, sinai peninsula, strait of hormuz, uae, united arab emirates, world cruise
