Locals and diving

Eid weekend in Oman saw lots of locals out and about enjoying BBQs on their beautiful beaches, seems the most common way to travel to private little bays is via a long boat. I assume they work a similar system to water taxis back home. There certainly was a continuous buzz of outboard motors going all day across the bay. This photo is taken from end of the peninsular just prior to sunset, just one of many boats taking people back to their cars.




From what I could gather most people seem to be heading to and from this bay - guessing it was the popular access spot where water taxi services could be found?




I did my PADI advanced certification (finally after years of procrastinating about doing it) while in Oman. Was great fun; water vis about same as BoP in the Omani winter season (apparently it is blue water and great vis in the in summer season). Water temperatures, however, rocked at a pleasant 28 degrees, ahhhhhh lovely. Instructor for the course was a neat local guy called Yaqoob, he was good value and even took his own camera out for one of the dives so I had some photos to take home. Gotta love that.



One family were lucky enough to see a Whale Shark while doing their Open Water cert - the day before I went diving. But still I was rapt as the marine life was abundant and the water unpolluted; I saw amongst other things, turtles, lobsters, lots of varieties of fish and moray eels, cuttle fish, octopus and the wreck Al Munnassir (where these photos were taken). Al Munnassir rests in about 30metres of water. She was sunk deliberately for diving and has a healthy population of Moray eels and other cool marine life in residence.



Was incredibly nice to get back in water again - if you are ever in Oman check out the Oman Dive Center, fabulous location, operation and great people.

Oman hut

More photos to come but this was my very cool Barasti style Omani hut at the Oman Dive Center. Fantastic place to stay, wonderful people too.

The hut name Barasti refers to the material in which these huts are built. The palm fronds (barasti) used in the final phase of building are carefully selected by hand and retained for their high quality before being prepared according to tradition with a special carving knife (majeez or das).

The bathroom was open aired as the rock walls didn't meet the roof, very neat to have fresh air flowing through - especially after apartment A/C living in Bahrain.

As you can see Oman is hilly but rather dry. Great little tracks for exploring the hills on, very nice to get above sea level again!

Looking back along the track towards dive center and below a great place to sit and watch the world.

Friday Brunch

Is a marvellous concept really, take some good people who like to laugh, add in a beautiful location, fabulous food, live jazz band and unlimited booze and you have the making a fun little Friday outing. Extra bonus it's walking distance from home, weather is cool enough (just) to walk rather than taxi - be it a slow walk accompanied by several comments of 'whew it's a bit warmer than I thought it would be.....'.

We all opted for bubbles as drink of choice and a great time was had by all.



Eventually the staff kicked us out an hour after closing. Walking home was a laugh especially with David and Davin.......... see pic below - hard to tell by this shot that they are both rather intelligent types normally.

Bahrain Marathon Relay

On the 20th November hundreds of nutters competed in the annual Bahrain Marathon Relay. It is against the rules for any member of a team to run two stages consecutively - so the most you can do is just over 3km......... hardly worth getting out of bed for really. So I did a stage for two different teams to make it worth spending a day down on the highways of Bahrain.

The old knee held up well and I managed to do my 3.11km stage in 13.30 and the later stage (a lengthy 2.9km!) in 12.30. Happy enough with that, managed not to drop the batten even though my hands did get rather sweaty due to the heat......

Team 43 was one of the Bahrain Polytechnic staff teams (ahead of the other BP team by an hour or so but behind both student teams) and Team 82 was the British Club Gym team. All good fun and focus is on getting people out there not on running fast. Lots of people walking their stages but all enjoying the atmosphere, Bahrainis certainty know how to have fun and laugh at every opportunity.

Something quite surreal about running along the 6 lane highway with several small plastic cones offering 'protection' against the traffic zooming past - like no event I have ever done before. Bring back Coromandel hills any day!

Every runner received a medal too - woooohooooo