After 25 hours of travel and a 12 hour time difference from San Francisco, I made it to Abu Dhabi last night. I'm still slightly in disbelief that I'm here in this wonderful country of extremely welcoming people, doing work that I love to do with an amazing field crew - I feel so fortunate right now.  The hotel that we're staying at is a 4 star resort with an absolutely amazing complementary breakfast and one of the most comfortable beds that I've slept on. What a great way to start off the day. Unbeknownst to most of the crew beforehand, we had a day long meeting at the EAD (the Sheikh's Environmental Agency Abu Dhabi) debriefing our local huge volunteer field crew, comprised mostly of college women. We have quite the task ahead of us measuring carbon in the wetlands and mangroves across the majority of the UAE coast, and the extra hands are greatly appreciated. I also found out that we will be traveling to some islands north of Al Mirfa that are normally closed to everyone and there are opportunities for camping on the beach in lieu of hotels (um, yes please!). There wasn't any time for exploring due to the meeting but I managed to capture a shot of the surrounding urban landscape. Tomorrow we head to mangroves just east of the city to get our core crew on the same page about sampling protocols. It might be challenging with the predicted 50km/hr wind gusts but I think that my years at Burning Man have taught me how to do handle it with grace and style :). Cheers for now...