Snorkeling in Musandam, Oman

Saturday we had an early(ish) start. John’s friends Jacob and Anne Marie were down visiting from COWI Qatar. Michael and I decided to join them for a snorkeling trip to Musandam, Oman. John picked us up at 9 and we head north on the Emirates Road.

Camels on the highway.

10km to the border we see a sign for last UAE gas station and pull over. The tank is now full and comes time to leave; the car won’t start. I think to myself this is a common OCC/COWI theme… We push it to the side of the station and let it sit a few minutes. The next time, the car starts right up. Clearly, this is a good sign to start the day.

The explorers.

After passing through Umm Al Quwain and Ras Al Khaimah, two northern emirates, we reach the Omani border. We pass through UAE Customs and get our exit stamps. Proceeding to the Omani Customs, we end up waiting outside for a while, but no problems. We take a couple different sheets of paper from one person to another for about 30 minutes and pass through the system. Other than paying almost $75 US in fees to get through, it’s fairly easy. John walks over to a small building and buys Omani car insurance, good for the next three days, and climb back into the car.

Once we reach Oman, we’re following the coast road along a rocky shore. We need to reach the Golden Tulip Resort by 1:00 to reserve our boat. Despite the best of John’s speeding attempts, including passing a police SUV, we pull in at 1:05. No problem, say the Arabs behind the desk. They give us a few minutes to catch a bite at their café. This, of course, takes forever and we get the food to go.

Musandam, Oman

The Golden Tulip Resort

From the resort, a guide takes us down into the village of {insert village name here}. We pull up to a marina. We’re scrambling to get our food and snorkel gear out of the car and onto the boat. Once we’re all aboard and catch our breath, we realize that we have our own boat. There was no reason to run.

Typical mooring arrangment in the harbor.

Campers on the beach. Accessible only by boat.

Our "dive" boat.

Another Tourist Dhow

Our “dive boat” for the day is a traditional Arabic dhow, converted from sail to diesel and painted nicely for passengers. The boat is maybe 40 feet long. Decorative pillows line the edges and rugs cover the bare floor. There are no protective railings you’d expect to see on an American tour boat; you’re free to hang yourself over the side of the boat as far as you want.

We pull pass an enormous breakwater (which of course we proceed to analyze as coastal engineers), and enter the Arabian Gulf. Shortly afterward, we turn away and enter a river system. The mountains here are incredible, cutting off all transportation other than boats. We can see the rock strata as it was bent and forced up to form these mountains years ago – Yes still being nerdy as Anne Marie does her best to ignore the frequent bouts of dork-dom.

Rocks

The boat stops offshore of a couple small fishing villages on the Oman coast as the guide tells us a story about each village. The villages are accessible by only boat or helicopter. Most are inhabited in the winter months only. A water ship supplies each town’s water tower once a week. Our hour long voyage is punctuated by brief periods of watching the dolphins jump around the boat.

Typical fishing village.

Dolphins!

We drop anchor at telegraph island and its time to snorkel. Quickly donning my grocery store snorkel gear, I jump in as the guide says something about not needing to mind the jellyfish. Right. It’s a quick swim the rest of the way to the island.

Telegraph Island

The island is surrounded by a coral reef, complete with lots of little colorful striped fish making me feel as if I’ve stumbled upon some Finding Nemo-esque residence. Diving off the surface, the water quality improves, increasing visibility to maybe 40 feet. The 5 of us decide to circumnavigate the island. Off the north side, we can even see yellowfin tuna down deep. I’m not quite sure what the guide was talking about. There are tons of jellyfish all over the island. Thankfully they’re mostly small immature ones, no larger than 2” or so, that can’t hurt. I got a 3 or 4 small stings, but still hardly worth mentioning. Anne Marie got two larger stings as our only real casualty of the trip.

The Omani Sheik's house. "Is not like Dubai - Maybe small house, but have very big heart"

We climb back aboard the boat. There’s an hour long dhow cruise back to the harbor. We watch the sun set over the ancient rock formations, just as we’re pulling back in. Graciously thanking our guides, we climb back onto the dock and back to our car. It takes nearly 3 hours to clear customs and complete the drive back to Ajman, but it was a great weekend.