Monday, February 23rd, 2004: Jet lag is not an issue. Slept all the way through the night and didn’t awake feeling groggy. Went down for breakfast and began to realize that buffets are big in the Middle East. Mark and I gabbed throughout the meal and it is an incomparable pleasure to exchange thoughts and ideas with an old friend possessing an agile mind.
Soon we head down to the dock and board our dhow, but right now it is utter peace. I’m sitting on the porch viewing surf and mountains. The water is amazingly clear & calm, enabling me to witness countless white/silver flashes as members of some large school of fish skim the surface of the Gulf. The sole audio is the faraway thrum of boat engines, apparently off to harvest fish.
And speaking of boats, I forgot to mention last night’s incident. When Mark and I were enjoying our porch and its view of the Persian Gulf, we suddenly heard/saw eight power boats rocketing full tilt out of Khasab and into open sea. Who would be heading out to open waters at dusk??? Certainly not fishermen, and the watercraft didn’t appear to be leisure vehicles (only one person per boat). Need to remember and ask one of the locals about this today!
An amazing cruise on the dhow. The water is exceptionally clear and we can see fish swimming well below us. We are navigating fjords and are surrounded by endless mountains of pure rock (and I mean 360 degrees). Mark and I only signed up for a half day and the sole other party sharing our excursion is a French family of six – husband and wife, son, daughter + grandparents. The husband is apparently with the French military and stationed in Abu Dhabi. They bought a full day, so a speedboat is supposed to arrive at Telegraph Island around 1PM to delete Mark and myself.
Our boat driver is Mohammed Kuzmar – the same guy who escorted Mark & Samia two weeks prior when they ventured down for their first visit to Musandam. He speaks Arabic, French & English and I am truly impressed. Mohammed gave me the lowdown on the speedboats from last night. Apparently Khasab gets daily visits from Iranians who load up on cigarettes. They hang out all day and depart at dusk to make the two hour return across the Strait of Hormuz, benefiting from nightfall to elude the Iranian coast guard as they smuggle nicotine back to their homeland! Mohammed tells me this is a substantial part of Khasab’s economy.
Cool images à flying fish, apparently disrupted by our bow, leap out of the water and literally flap their ‘wings’ to gain air for perhaps 10-to-20 feet…utterly delightful.
Beautiful water and rock of Musandam
Mohammed just waved a boat over and the fisherman presented us with a barracuda, which the French husband gladly accepted and started cutting up for bait…up until this visit he had been using an apple!
We have passed two villages that are only accessible by boat. The first, Nadifi, has a population of about 100 and consists of four families (all this info provided graciously by Mohammed). Children are boated to Khasab daily for school and a “grocery boat” delivers food each morning. The village is deserted in summer (everyone relocates to Khasab) and the sole occupation is fishing. It is amusing to witness the occasional pile of fishing gear piled on an isolated rock outcropping…guess theft is not a concern here. An amazing footnote is that you can see the power lines (using the standard wooden poles we’re familiar with in the US) traversing the rugged mountain landscape down to this remote speck of humanity. Appears they have both electric and phone.
Nadifi, Oman - no road access, but note the telephone poles!
Another amusing incident was when the French mother availed herself of the tea/coffee station Mohammed set up for us on the deck (it is beneath the blue tablecloth in the photo below). She was having some difficulty and Mohammed readily abandoned the rudder to assist her. Mohammed was in absolutely no rush and completely focused upon serving tea…while our dhow drifted aimlessly. The French husband eventually grabbed the rudder to straighten us out. Mohammed noticed this action, smiled, and gestured for the father to pull the rudder into his chest and get us back on course…”no problem” (a phrase Mohammed uttered several times, reminding me very much of Jamaica).
I was just glad her drink wasn’t served “on the rocks”…
Vance and Mohammed on Dhow – notice Mohammed is steering with his foot! (the tea station is on that small table covered by the blue tablecloth)
The grandest part of the boat ride occurred as we approached Telegraph Island and several dolphins accompanied us. They seemed to delight in riding the boat’s wake, and would accelerate up one side, breach, dive beneath our craft and surface on the opposite side to repeat. Mohammed really cranked the dhow up to encourage our bottle-nosed friends (dhows are constructed pretty much as centuries ago…except now they have engines) and I sure he was amused as the entire group scurried back and forth across the deck after each dive.
One of the marvelous dhow-skirting dolphins near Telegraph Island
After rounding many bends, docking at Telegraph Island would be the fascinating conclusion for our expedition. The British built a small fort here in the 1860’s to garrison a handful of troops tasked with guarding an underwater telegraph line. Faced with utter calm the soldiers routinely went crazy and this wee island is the derivation of the phrase “going round the bend”. Stumbling upon such nuggets as this nurtured my love for travel.
Mark on our dhow, docked at Telegraph Island in Musandam
Mark had packed along snorkel gear and we took a plunge, witnessing an impressive fish collection. Only down side was that I went barefoot as my feet were too big to slip into Samia’s flippers! Shortly after our snorkel the speedboat scooped us up spirited us back to Khasab, concluding a remarkable visit to a unique natural wonder.
On the way back home, Mark was on his cell phone to Samia (and sheesh, during my brief tenure here, the cell phone seems to be permanently attached to everyone’s ear) and she had arranged dinner on a dhow cruising Dubai Creek to entertain a visiting professor from Berlin. Dubai Creek is a significant attraction of the city, dividing the city between Bur Dubai and Deira. Many souks and cultural attractions lie along this waterway, which is delightfully cluttered with working dhows and ‘abrahs’…or water taxis, which transport folks across the creek. This struck me as an exceptional conclusion to the day - to be snorkeling in such a remote destination as Musandam at lunchtime and then plying the waters in a city of one million that evening….WOW!
No comments:
Post a Comment