No 137: The Yellow-Beaked Australian

Sunday 24^th Jan 2016, 7am: As the sun rises over the Haitian mountains behind us, 50 brave/foolhardy souls gather on a glorious Haitian beach ready to participate in the 7.8km swim to an island that can just be seen in the horizon. Perhaps not surprisingly the crowd is mostly male, and mostly young (well…younger than me anyway). Whilst the event is billed as a ‘fun’ endurance challenge there is still the distinctive whiff of competitive testosterone in the air.

The Isle team comprised two of my sons (Angus, 21 and Torin, 14), our Head of DealFlow Tom Jacks, the MD for Isle Australia Tim Day and me. Tim had shown true dedication to the cause and brought along his wife, his sister-in-law and his daughter, all of whom undertook roles as part of the event support-team. As we donned our mandatory bathing caps (much easier to find the bodies if they are wearing a bright yellow hat!) and gathered for a pre-swim photo Tom commented that this would be the photo his mother would keep by her bedside to remember him by.

For the avoidance of doubt, Tim is the older fellow in the photo. He is the one with the bright yellow nose. He claimed it was a special zinc-based sun-cream. I don’t believe him. I think it was war-paint made to spook the rest of us. I am the one who is beetroot-red, having foolishly spent 30 minutes the day before out in the sun unprotected. Mad dogs and Englishmen.

As the horn sounded we launched ourselves into the sea, thrashing our way into deep water.  The young bucks initially took the lead but with age comes stamina and it was not long before the leading pack was exclusively over-40.

Each swimmer had a local fisherman assigned as their safety boat. To a man, none of the fishermen spoke English and, to a man, none of the competitors spoke Haitian Creole. This was not a problem. ‘Help I am drowning’ and ‘Where the hell is the sodding island?’ are relatively easy to express in hand signals. Despite my original fears, this year there were no sharks and no jellyfish. Instead the unforeseen challenge was the strong cross-current that added on average an extra hour to the swim. People with GPS watches tell me that the current meant they swam over 9km. I am not sure of this. All I know is there was an hour in the middle of the event where no matter how hard you pulled yourself through the water the island seemed to stay exactly the same distance away. It almost broke me.

Now everyone knows that Australians are competitive, it is in their blood. They may not be very good at cricket , but swimming is a particular forte and Tim,  my elderly (he is 52!) yellow-beaked colleague dug deep and romped to the finish line first in a staggeringly impressive 2 hours and 47 minutes. Gold for the Aussies! A Frenchman took second place, and a Canadian took third. I brought in the UK contingent at 4^th , a mere 6 minutes behind Tim. No medal. No glory. How very British.

Two hours later, with every swimmer now safely on the island the post event party commenced. Food, drink, sunshine…... Another day in paradise.  

(And yes, for my Aussie readers, I deliberately didn’t mention rugby. You really don’t need any further encouragement).

No 136: Stuff I learnt this week…

I have spent the first part of this week in Abu Dhabi at the International Water Summit. This is a mammoth event with exhibitors and conference speakers aplenty. There are literally thousands of delegates and hundreds of exhibitors, all networking and doing deals and generally keeping the wheels of commerce turning. The event is sponsored by Masdar, the multi-billion dollar Abu Dhabi company that is both the brains and the money behind many of the sustainability initiatives in the region. The Masdar logo is everywhere, and so it should be, they have pumped millions into sponsoring the event. Little old Isle, the small technical consultancy for which I am Chairman, is coordinating ‘Innovate@IWS’, a dragons den forum for new technologies which is running across all three days of the event. We are miniscule compared to Masdar so you can imagine my delight when I spotted that our logo was bigger than that of Masdar (see attached). I suspect someone will get sacked for this, but for my part I want to shake their hand and express my gratitude.Lesson learnt: Size Does Matter

One of the many historic deals that was formally signed during the past few days was the renewal of a three year agreement between Isle and WSAA (the Water Services Association of Australia). Adam Lovell, WSAA’s CEO, and I had a suitably grand signing ceremony this morning, complete with video cameras, post-event interviews and photographers. After three years working together to bring new, disruptive technologies to the Australian Water Sector we are committing to another three years. It is the corporate equivalent of renewing our marriage vows! Despite all the pomp and glamour that will be fantastically captured in the photos, web-blogs and press releases one key fact is missing. There wasn’t actually anyone in the audience when we signed the documents. Lesson learnt: You Don’t Always Need and Audience

I have written previously about the rising salinity in the Gulf. This is an emerging catastrophic environmental issue that must be addressed now. I had wrongly assumed that the chief cause of the salinity increase was the 1500+ desalination facilities in the region, many of which discharge a nasty strong brine into the Gulf. Listening to Dr Ouarda from the Masdar Institute, I learnt that brine is actually a resource from which we can extract energy and precious metals, and that the increase in the Gulf’s salinity is caused more by increased evaporation (due to climate change) than brine discharges. Furthermore, I attended the inaugural Global Clean Water Desalination Alliance (GCWDA) meeting. The main objective of the GCWDA is simple: to develop a credible, reliable, robust desalination method that is completely carbon neutral. Their catch phase is ‘H20 without CO2’. If this can be made to work (and quickly) there might be hope for the Gulf.  Lesson learnt: There is hope. There is always hope.

In recent years I have been likened to Woody Harrelson more times than I care to mention. Usually people come up to me and say something to my face (‘Hey mate, you look like that bloke from Cheers/Hunger Games/Zombieland! You know, the bald bloke that looks a bit manic and weird’). This week I discovered people talk about my Woody-likeness behind my back. If he ever follows the example of some of his Hollywood colleagues and makes an all-action film where Arabs are the baddies I will be screwed. My ability to get through local airport customs is already pretty difficult, that would be the final straw. Lesson Learnt: My fate is in Woody’s hands.

Finally, security at IWS is tight. Or at least gives the impression of being tight. The entrance to the event has airport-like security with x ray machines and body scanners. For the first two days the scanners beeped whenever anyone walked through them and no one seemed to take any notice. On the third day they addressed this annoying beeping problem….by turning them off completely. Like non-thinking robots we all still queued diligently to go through them. Yesterday when I made it through the scanner I found that someone before me had mistakenly taken my bag as it looked similar to his own. It took 30 minutes and a Sherlock Holmes like search of his bag to locate him. He was mortified when I eventually connected with him but I told him it didn’t matter, thinks like this happen. Little does he know I removed his passport. Payback will be sweet. Lesson Learnt: I need a Pink Rucksack, Black is too Common

Late tonight, at 230am, I fly back to the UK. I am choosing to see my overnight flight in Economy as part of my training for this coming weekends swim in Haiti (see last Note). Many thanks to those of you who have kindly made donations, I am overawed at your generosity. The link to donate is at: http://swimforhaiti.org/donate.html, should you feel so minded.  

This Note, and previous entries can be found at  http://notesfrompiers.blogspot.co.uk/

No 135: Sharks and Jellies

A year ago my youngest son and I, along with about a dozen other fools, participated in a 7.7km sea swim in Haiti. As the day drew nearer I became ever more regretful of my initial eagerness to participate. I would quietly curse Jim Chu, the charismatic and persuasive individual who had convinced me to undertake this terrifying task. It wasn't the distance that worried me, it was the sharks. I needn't have worried, there were no sharks (at least not on the day we swam). Just swathes of painful jellyfish. They only appeared for the last 200m but boy, did it make for a welcoming committee. After 2 hours battling with the waves there is nothing quite like a stinger in your trunks to focus the mind. 

Call me stupid but on Sunday 24th Jan we will be doing the swim again. This time not only is my youngest son participating but so also is my eldest (sons no 2 and 3 are far too sensible). I even have two Isle colleagues joining me (Tom Jacks, Head of Dealflow, and Tim Day, MD for Isle Australia). Whereas my response when I get stung/bitten/dragged to my watery grave will be to once again curse ever meeting Jim Chu. Tom, Tim and my sons will be cursing me. I see it a pyramid of hatred and blame. 

Jim, as regular readers of these Notes will know, is the CEO for the truly excellent and inspirational business Dlo Haiti. Dlo provides water to rural communities in Haiti through a network of water kiosks and it is one of the most inspiring methods for addressing water supply in areas of poverty and poor infrastructure. It is because of Jim's achievements with Dlo that I will, grudgingly, forgive him for convincing me to once again undertake this swim. I am not sure my colleagues and family will cut me the same degree of slack, but it is too late for them to pull out now. 

There is of course a point to this swim. It is partly to highlight to the world that Haiti, despite all its problems, is a country that can host just these sort of events. It is a country that needs tourists. The swim itself is to raise money for swimming teaching programme, run by (former British Olympic swimming coach and now a Haitian resident) Ian Lyons. Every year numerous Haitian children drown due to the fact that, despite living on a Caribbean island, they cannot swim. Ian’s goal is to teach 6000 local children to swim. Sport is not standard in the Haitian school curricula. The level of fear towards water is extreme, compounded by the fact that most children especially in poorer areas have known of relatives or friends who drowned. It has taken Ian a long time to get the local children to a level that they can even concentrate to learn to swim. Once starting to swim the change in their confidence is visible. His swim program, which is linked to the CLE foundation (Centre for Leadership and Excellence) aims to build up exactly these confidence levels whilst at the same time decreasing the risk of drowning.

I don’t like asking for money. Especially as it is to pay for me to do something stupid and extreme. However, if you feel so minded please do make a contribution. I will personally match any contribution made for the ‘Isle team’ (my sons Angus and Torin, Tom Jacks, Tim Day and myself) , up to $3k. The link to donate is at: http://swimforhaiti.org/donate.html. If you want to see a short video of last years’ event (it opens with a shot of me and my son) go to http://www.swimforhaiti.org/. My Note from last years’ event was No 80 (http://notesfrompiers.blogspot.co.uk/)

If you want to participate in next years’ event then let me know. Jim would love to have you come along and it would be good for the Sharks and Jellies to have a wider menu from which to choose their lunch. 

No 134: My first meeting of 2016

My first meeting of 2016 was very important. I was meeting with a senior member of the Ministry of Energy and Environment in Abu Dhabi. So important and influential was the person that I was meeting that I had been advised to refer to her as ‘Your Highness’. I had flown into Abu Dhabi especially for this engagement. It was not a meeting to be ill-prepared for, nor for me to arrive at late.

Imagine my excitement therefore when I got into my hotel taxi to make the 20 minute journey only for my driver, who looked about 12, to get lost 4 times.

Give him credit though, what he lacked in local knowledge he made up with sheer excitement and enthusiasm. At every lights he leapt out of the car, and rushed to the nearest neighbouring taxi to ask directions. He was completely unperturbed at the distress this was causing me, and upon returning to our car would simply turn and give me a beaming smile and tell me that it was ‘All good’. If only there was a way of getting, say, ones’ mobile phone to give directions.

I had left my hotel with an hour to spare. I arrived with just minutes remaining. The opportunity for a pre-meeting with my colleague was lost. My driver’s cheerful enthusiasm however had entranced me and rather than being grumpy I found myself sharing in his childlike delight at locating the (massive, imposing, really-difficult-not-to-notice) Offices for the Federal Government. We felt united in our quest, like treasure hunters who had finally struck gold.

It was only as I was paying my bill that my young chauffeur turned to me and proudly informed me that today was his first day on the job. I was his first ever customer. I smiled at him sweetly and gave him an undeservedly large tip to celebrate this milestone. Enthused by my payment he offered to stay and wait, and be my driver for the whole day. I hastily declined.

I don’t doubt that I should have given him a tip. After all, who hasn’t screwed up on their first day in a new job? But I sense my tip should have been advisory rather than monetary: Buy a Sat Nav.