Breakfast was included and we sat on the terrace overlooking the sea and worked our way through the extensive breakfast buffet. Suitably fortified, we grabbed our bags and headed to reception to check out. Here, we stood in a queue for quite some time whilst absolutely nothing happened. Eventually, we grabbed a staff member and explained we had an appointment at 0930! We managed to escape shortly after that. As a footnote, should you ever be in this neck of the woods, this is the better located of the two Atana hotels in Khasab.the other one is down in the Port area.
We had booked a dhow cruise for the morning and we therefore followed a man, who'd been sent up to guide us to the dhow, down in the Port. Khasab is small town but has a fairly busy port. It also has a fort built by the Portuguese in an attempt to control access to the Straits of Hormuz. They didn't last long! It's possible to catch a ferry from here for the five hour journey down to Muscat. Our craft was somewhat smaller and was an open dhow, a bit similar to the one taken by Michael Palin when he was travelling from Oman to Pakistan in his 'Around the World in 80 Days' adventure.
Our dhow wasn't an authentic wooden vessel though, it was a modern fibreglass look-alike, probably built in Dubai. Nonetheless, it looked good and had carpets spread out on the deck and large comfy cushions to sit or lounge around on. It also had a canvas shade over the entire deck area. It was crewed by two Omanis, one was the captain the other, who spoke English, our guide. We had the whole boat for the four of us. We were served sweet tea, water and 'Turkish' coffee throughout the trip too.
Once on board, we soon untied and set off put of the Port. As I said earlier, the sea was flat calm and we motored along following the coastline. The scenery is dramatic. Initially, the coastline was low hills with an occasional deserted sandy beach between low headlands. Then, as we turned into the nearest fjord-like inlet, the barren mountains rose almost vertically from the sea. It's very stark scenery and the only form of transport is by boat.
There were several other dhow cruises following a similar route to ours, but most of the time we were well separated from them. After about 30 minutes, our captain told us that a couple of other dhows had spotted dolphins so we headed over to see if we could spot them too. There was a pod of about 20 Indo-Pacific Humpback Dolphins around the boats and we managed to take a few good pictures of them. Lynn had been hoping to see dolphins the whole time we've been away. Today was her day!
After enjoying the company of the dolphins for a while, we motored on further up the fjord. There are several very small fishing villages here, the only access is by water. They do have electricity and water is delivered by tanker every week. A very remote existence.
The British left their mark here too on Telegraph Island. They built a 'repeater' station on the island which serviced the underwater cable that was laid from here to India. It must have been a bleak job as the island is very small. Allegedly, they spent their time yearning to go around the top end of the Peninsular back to the comforts of Colonial India and therefore coined the phrase 'Going round the bend'! I don't know if this is true, but it sounds plausible!
Not long after passing the island, we found a sheltered bay to anchor in and we all jumped of the boat and went snorkelling. Visibility wasn't wonderful, but we all saw coral, spiny urchins and a wide variety of fish. We got so engrossed that we didn't notice the time and eventually the dhow moved and came to pick us up. Although the water was colder than we had recently experienced in Australia, it was still plenty warm enough for us.
Our trip lasted three and a half hours and was very relaxing and enjoyable, I'd highly recommend it. It's possible to do a whole day trip and you go a lot further up the fjord and get to land on Telegraph Island.
Back at the port, we visited the 'Lulu' supermarket to buy some nibbles for lunch and were amazed at how cheap it was compared to Dubai. We took our lunch and drove a few kilometres out of town and found a place to park high above the sea. We ate lunch here and took a few photos of the scenery too.
We drove back to Sha'am, the border crossing. We were only a few minutes on the Omani side, but the UAE side was busy and took considerably longer. Once through the border, it was a couple of hours drive back to Dubai. Traffic was quite heavy as we got closer into the city. All in all, a great overnight trip to the Musandam Peninsular.
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