6th June, 2006 - Bradley's email to friends and family
Hello again from sunny Angola.
I hope these photos don't upset all those living in freezing cold, wet,
blowie Melbourne.
The picture below was taken about 2-3 week after I arrived here in Angola. It was
the day we were out deep sea fishing, chasing sail fish and marlin. We
didn't catch a thing all day. 8 hours on a boat with 5 other people. Sounds
bad I know, but the captain came prepared. The esky was fully loaded with
beers and there was another loaded with food. This picture was taken by the captain when we were about 14 miles offshore. He had to climb back aboard to take it, because when he jumped
overboard everyone else did the same. No one was left in the boat. We swam
around for a while, trying very hard to keep the sea water out of the beer.
Gosh life is tuff.
The next photo is for the construction minded people. It was taken
from the thrid story of the hotel we were staying in. This seems to
be normal for Angola - the backhoe has a load of concrete in its bucket
and the guys use hand buckets to unload it, then hand it to another guy
standing on top of the form work, and he pours the concrete in place.
This photo was taken from the beach. This oil rig was about 1-2kms off the
beach. It stayed there doing its thing for about 3 weeks before getting
pulled 3-4kms further down the beach to start again.
The next pics were taken on my birthday. This is the beach bar (called Caribe) - a place I've visited once or twice. EVERYDAY... Beside me is one of Katie's supervisors,
Rist. He grew up in Norway and now lives in Indonesia. The others at the table are Katie's work mates. The guy serving us
is a local called Seven. Before i got here he asked Katie out on a date.
To church!!!
Next on the list is the sunset from Caribe with an oil tanker heading out of port.
Katie made me go back to the bar this night so she could watch the sunset. Gosh it's
hard keeping my wife happy...
This is the beach on the Ilha across the road from the hotel we stayed in. Caribe is on the left with the yellow umbrellas. This
part of the beach is full on the weekends and public holidays. The waiters
will serve you on the beach. Anything you want, drinks, food, the works.
The best part about the beach is that all the girls wear bikinis!!!!! And
the smallest amount of material the better. What a place :-)
Last of all is to prove everything's well here in Luanda. It's a strange
place, and a bit hard to take the camera out to show you (you'll
most likely get mugged and have it stolen), but we'll try.
Katie here. I just thought I'd add a few extra pics that Brad never sent in this email. Here's my supervisor Rist after a few frosty beers on Bradley's birthday. It's sunset and the waiters at Caribe have been trying to pack up the banana lounges on the beach for a while now. Rist has spotted a fabulous stack of cushions... What a challenge! He spent about 20 minutes trying to balance himself on the top. Brad and I were laughing our bellies out, and the waiters weren't sure whether to laugh or cry...
Hope everyone's well and having a good time like us.
I'll send photos of our house when we get it.
Brad and Katie
