The trip to the dunes was awesome, had a bumpy windy ride out there and we had stops now n then to let the transmissions and engine cool off a bit. They were manual vehicles that they kept runnin in first and second gear. When we got out to the dunes the drivers let air out of the tires to do better in the sand. I t was a blast. We stopped also to watch the sunset over the dunes, hence the name of it ‘sunset safari’. After that we headed into this fort, village thing they have set up there that has a bar, a buffet place when they cook the food for you to get it, and also some shops where you can buy belly dancer outfits and also the robes n headpieces that the guys wear.

After awhile the belly dancer came out n it was very very cool. After her performance she grabbed some girls from the audience to have do some moves n then also some guys, was pretty funny n fun. After all of that then we rode back to the main road and back to the ship. The ride back was even more rough then the ride there which is funny n stupid because a ton of people just get drunk there because they can buy the alcohol n that’s about what 85% of the people out here do is get drunk. 2 of the 6 in my group got wasted n was annoying but thankfully the tour was at the end. The one person that threw up on the way back though was a guy who just couldn’t handle the food that was given to us. That part was ironic; I would’ve thought it was going to be one of the 2 drunkies. That was the first day; second day was pretty much just spent at the mall n was fun being out n about. Had to be back early because of duty on the third day. 

Duty wasn’t anything exciting; I had a watch from 3 till midnight. My watch was to ride with the bus driver who shuttled guys to dif places. There were only 2 places each day that the busses went and that changed up every day on where they were going, just to prevent the bad guys from tracking us, which is funny to me. But I went with them to make sure people behaved on the busses. There were 30 of us so we all rotated on who went on which bus. I ended up going on other people’s buses n never my own because of how screwy things got with the schedule n plan they had set up. The watch we are supposed to wear civilian clothes to blend in, but yet they give us, and beach patrol which are guys walking around certain areas to watch out for people misbehaving or being dumb or getting drunk, but w4e all had bright yellow shirts on, and all the same. So here we are wearing civies to blend in, with this bright yellow shirt saying target me. Yeah, brilliant. 

So the 4^th day I wanted to do laundry and just relax but I needed to get one thing out in town so I did my laundry in the morning and then tried finding people to go out in town with for just like 2 hours to grab a quick thing from the mall for Lillian. Well, found a group and it was 1 person I didn’t like at all from my last c-school in Oceana before going to Norfolk, and then 1 guy I didn’t know at all who was a bit odd and the third guy I just recognize from seeing him around the ship but can’t even remember his name at all. And I don’t really care either. Desperate times calls for desperate measures. Well, the 2 hour trip turned out to be like a 6 hour trip and there went my last night to relax. So now I’ll be heading to sleep here shortly ready to work a normal shift again. At least I had a break from the work. I’ll email some more on what’s going on out on the ship with my job n collateral duties n such when I have more time and am rested up. Love you all n hope everything is going well back home.