Friday 7th April 2006

Today we were going for breakfast with the dolphins. We returned to the marina where the restaurant is where we had dinner the evening before.

We boarded the small boat and set off out of the marina at quite a slow pace, but once out of the marina, the driver drove the boat at a very fast speed! We went past the residence of the British Ambassador, where we could see the Union flag flying. The house overlooked the marina and looked very grand. Then, a few minutes later, we joined five or six other boats, and saw the first dolphins straight away! Well! This has to be one of those moments in life, that take your breath away. Although I didn’t swim with the dolphins, I think I can cross this one off of my list of 101 things to do – it was wonderful to see the dolphins carousing and jumping out of the water. These are “spinner” dolphins and there are many of them in the waters around Muscat. We followed the dolphins for about half an hour, moving along the coast, the boats all in a group.

The driver left the controls of the boat for a couple of minutes (eek!) to offer us orange juice, water, and packs of biscuits. They were coconut creams. This, then, was the breakfast! Still, the snack and drink were very welcome! (What I had been expecting was something more akin to Charabot’s boat and buffet at the WPC!! But it was not a disappointment!) We watched the playful dolphins a little while longer, and then the driver said did we want to go snorkelling? (We couldn’t get off the boat here and swim with the dolphins or anything, because they said it was a very long way away from the shore and it was very deep.) We replied that we did, and so we drove away from the group of boats at full speed again, just our boat and another one from the same company, and we headed for a large, rocky island out in the open sea. He cut the speed just as we approached the rock, and again he left the controls* to go to the front of the boat and he lowered an anchor. (*Eek, again! We were quite close to the rock!) Then, he reversed a little, to tighten the anchor rope, and then cut the engine altogether. I guess he is used to doing this, probably every day. What a great job in such beautiful surroundings! Imagine driving a boat like this in the waters around Muscat for a living!

The other boat moored up alongside ours – two boats on one anchor. Then we got our snorkels and masks and got undressed down to our swimsuits and he put a ladder down the outside of the boat for us to climb into the water. The driver fed the fish with some of the packets of biscuits, to get them all to come around! I said surely that was not part of their proper diet! The driver replied, no, this is a treat for them! The water was cold (!) at first, as the ambient temperature was very warm, but you quickly got used to it. As I am used to swimming under the water with just my goggles, I could not get on with the snorkel, so I just looked around under the surface while holding my breath. I could not stop the water going up my nose otherwise! It was VERY salty. I hardly had to swim at all, I could just relax and just float on my back or my front. The fish were amazing to see, there were so many different kinds. There were damsel fish (small black fish with a white spot), striped fish and some larger blue and yellow ones. I saw what I thought was a squid, but it may have been a cuttlefish from listening to the others. To think that three or four years ago, I might not have dared to do this – I was not a very strong swimmer and never went underwater and preferred to either be able to hang onto something or put my feet on the bottom. But of course, I could not do that here, there may be sea urchins or other dangers and in any case, it was too deep. But now, here I was, swimming with the fish so close I could almost reach out and touch them with my fingers. In Athens I can remember saying I was not keen on swimming in the sea as there are “fish ‘n’ things” in the water! But this was fantastic! We swam / snorkelled for about forty minutes and then got back on the boat and dried off on the way back to the marina. Which was again accomplished at top speed! When we got there and disembarked, the bus was not quite back yet to collect us and so we returned to the restaurant where we had eaten the night before, and Rhona ordered us “Mint Coolers” all round. This seemed to be, from what I could gather, iced lemonade, with fresh, crushed mint leaves mixed in and it certainly was very cooling and refreshing!

We returned to our hotel for a shower and to get ready for the Friday “brunch” (which is somewhat equivalent to our Sunday lunch in terms of occasion). This was being served downstairs in the hotel restaurant. There was a choice of cold buffet, with hummous, tabouleh, various other salads, raw vegetables and bread, or soup for a starter. Then for the main course there were lamb kebabs, tandoori chicken, chicken curry, meatballs in yoghurt, boiled rice, roast potatoes and vegetables. There was even authentic Omani fayre (not!) of mini pizzas and chicken nuggets, maybe that was the children’s menu! For dessert there was an assortment of Omani / Middle Eastern sweets, halva, baklava, crème caramel, a chocolate-flavoured trifle type dish, an apricot cake (not sure what that was but maybe that was the halva?) It was all very delicious.

Afterwards, Rhona / Margaret had arranged for some Omani ladies to come and talk to us to give us a taste of their culture. There were three ladies, very well educated and beautifully dressed, and in fact they were talking mostly about their work for a Cancer Awareness charity and making the Omani women and population in general more self-aware and conscious of the risks of cancer and what signs to look for. One of them described how she had been diagnosed with three different cancers one after the other and had received treatment and had survived. She gives hope to others now and she has been responsible for setting up the Omani Cancer Awareness Foundation. They gave each of us a lovely book of poetry that they usually sell to raise funds. One of the ladies is a nutritionist and they are looking in particular at dietary habits and lifestyle changes and links with certain types of cancer.

The sunset this evening was absolutely stunning as we all went out to the gardens near the pool for a group photo. We saw two green parrots in one of the trees. The walk along the beach that had been scheduled for us as something to do was put aside in favour of a visit by taxi to some shopping malls instead. We went to the Sabco Centre, where we spent the most time in the Amouage shop, smelling all the perfumes. We also looked at silks and jewellery. We caught taxis back to the hotel in time for a brief look at the “fish market” at the bottom of the hill from the hotel. Down there is an inlet where the fishing boats go out in the afternoon and return at 8.00 – 9.00 p.m. and they lay out all the fish they have caught just on mats on the ground. Some of the fish were quite big but I couldn’t help feeling sad that these lovely big and small fish were swimming around in the ocean just a few hours earlier! Finally we walked back up the hill the short distance to the hotel and turned in for the night.

Return to Oman Index