Dive Oman

Last weekend I was back in Oman. We didn’t write about it last time, but we did almost exactly the same trip two days after getting back from the Maldives (and you can assume much of the same as happened on this trip went on then too). This time Virginia decided to have a bit of a break from people and stay at home while I headed off again.

Oman is a big country on the south-west border of the UAE, but there are two rather small enclaves (i.e. parts of a country surrounded by another country) further north. One, the governate of Musandam, is at the north-most tip of  the UAE where it juts into the Persian Gulf. The second, Madha, which is rather smaller and completely surrounded by the UAE, lies between Musandam and mainland Oman on the Fujairah- Khor-Fakken road. Interestingly, there is a still tinier enclave of the UAE which is surrounded entirely by Madha - called Nahwa.

It was up to Dibba, which lies at the border of Musandam and the UAE, that I made my way for the weekend.

A group of about twenty or thirty of us had together hired a dhow for the weekend. It left from the Dibba harbour early on Saturday morning.

 

The landscape out there is worth mentioning. All along the coast line is the same thing. Rugged red and grey mountains which look to have been plucked directly from Mars, plunge directly into the sea, allowing for very few beaches, and even fewer coastal towns – although we passed one or two villages on our way up north.

We spent the entire day diving. Unfortunately unlike last time the water was not crystal clear, as there seemed to be a touch of red-tide, and there had also recently been an oil spill. Having said that once we were beneath the muck it was a lot clearer we still saw huge schools of colourful fish, and a few lovely turtles. One of the bigger fish, a batfish, followed us for one entire hour-long dive.

 

We anchored in a sheltered bay in the evening, and were treated to a feast of a supper, before packing in. It’s lovely to be rocked to sleep like that under the open sky, with the Milkyway visible overhead.

We headed back to the harbour in the morning, pausing to have a couple more dives, one in very clear warm waters, and the other could have been in a different ocean, as it was murky and cold again. On this second dive we saw about 20 poisonous scorpion fish, 4 clumped together at one point, which is rare as you tend to see few, and they tend to be alone.

 

It was still odd when I arrived back home to feel the way our perfectly solid bed seemed to sway underneath me, which I knew from last time would continue for at least another day.