Al Bateen Residences Pool

In Dubai for two nights to break up the journey to New Zealand. Not had chance to do much as work has followed me and it's busy season!

I planned an early 5am start to visit the Dubai Police Academy pool — a trip I'd pre‑arranged with the pool manager and I believe the only 50m Dubai pool not yet on the list. Unfortunately I was woken at 1:30am by a ring at the hotel room door and couldn't get back to sleep for a couple of hours. Eventually Katy Kay and the Mouch on The Rest Is Politics US podcast did the trick!

Keen to get a swim done (and add a new pool), I'm staying at the DoubleTree Hilton on JBR which has a more‑than‑25m pool, but it's family splash central from 9am to 9pm and one end is a swim-up bar, so I'm going to mark that as doesn't qualify - flip turns on the bar might not go down well with the bar staff! From my balcony I'd already clocked the private pool next door for a residential apartment block — and I'd seen people doing laps. There's an entrance right off the beach, past a security desk. I reckoned if I waited until the sun went down and casually walked in, it would be fine.

Quick check from the balcony: it's dark and the pool is empty. I make my way down, walk past the Hilton beach cabanas and right up onto the pool deck. Take a seat on a sunbed and get ready. A lifeguard appears out of the darkness. At first I thought he was coming to ask who I was, but he starts straightening sunbeds. As he walks past I ask if he knows how long the pool is. 31 metres — an odd length, but he's absolutely sure, and looking at it I believe him (later I realised it's not odd at all: it's 100 ft).

Just as I'm about to jump in, another guy arrives and starts unpacking paddles. There are no lanes, so we each take a side.

Another take‑it‑easy swim; I've hopefully got a few coming up so I don't want to stress the shoulder (that now seems to be incorporating my left elbow in its twinges). Also didn't want to cause too many waves in this beautiful infinity pool.

I rack up 1,240 metres. Halfway through, some guys jump in and start chucking a ball around, but they leave pretty quickly.

Swim done, I snap a couple of photos with the big wheel in the background, then it's time for a couple of quick Coronas at the beach bar and around the corner to pop my Raising Cane's cherry before a 16‑hour flight early tomorrow morning.