Ninety miles from Dubai, is the capital city of the UAE. Its name is Abu Dhabi, and a $3 billion hotel is just the beginning of the story.   http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune

The hotel I am referring to is the Emirates Palace it cost $3 billion to build, boasts 1,002 Swarovski crystal chandeliers and a gold-leaf dome larger than the one atop St. Paul's Cathedral in London. In the distance, glittering in the aqua-blue Persian Gulf, are dozens of islands that will one day sprout skyscrapers, hotels, museums, hospitals, and factories financed in part by the $200 billion to be spent here over the next ten years.

How many places in the world can say, 'I'm going to establish an airline,' and boom, two years later you have 21 planes and 37 destinations? How many places in the world can say, 'I need 15,000 hotel rooms,' and boom, you have 100 new hotels in the works? How many places can say, 'I want world-class hospitals, universities, and museums,' and boom, the Sorbonne, Cleveland Clinic, Guggenheim, and Louvre are on the way?"

Welcome to Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates and the richest city in the world. The emirate's 420,000 citizens, who sit on one-tenth of the planet's oil and have almost $1 trillion invested abroad, are worth about $17 million apiece. (A million foreign workers don't share in the wealth.) Yet most people couldn't find Abu Dhabi on a map, but not for much longer.

It’s ‘coming out’ is about the biggest thing happening in the region & paddler’s will be pleased to know that they are not getting left behind.

The Abu Dhabi Ocean Warriors

Phenomenal photos of Oscar Chalupsky and Tahitian local Tepa Leopold catching the wave at Teahupoo... Enjoy!

Tepa Leopold - at speed...

First wave this year.
"This was the first swell here of the whole year," said Oscar, "very unseasonal!".
The photographers can sit in perfect safety metres away from the edge of the break.
Oscar and Tepa had a ball but I could sense that Oscar had wanted to push the envelope... "I wish I had a boat I could risk destroying..." he said wistfully. Sooner him than me!

For lots more (even bigger) pictures, click here...