From Muscat to Sur
The following day, we left Muscat at the crack of dawn bound for Sur in three four-wheel drive vehicles which were going to become necessary as the roads went from tarmac to mud during the course of the week. Our guides/drivers were Khalid (my hero from the hike rescue), Abdullah (a professional guide with a wicked sense of humour) and Saif who, perhaps because of the homonym of his name, was assigned to keep me close by all week. They would be with us for the entire trip and I can honestly say they made it such fun; tremendous ambassadors for the country of Oman, and all of them, photographers.
Our first stop was Quriyat beach to catch the sunrise. The main attraction here would be the fisherman readying their boats and mending nets, although to begin with, we were curious about the procession of people walking along the beach to the rocks at the end.
We followed them towards the rocks where there was a natural spring which the people were using as a part of their cleansing ritual - mystery solved.
It seemed we had got up much earller than the fisherman, so the beach was pretty quiet as the sun rose. Nevertheless we caught some people mending nets and launching their boats.
First stop: Quriyat Beach
Second Stop: Salt flats
Two new experiences for me at this stop: seeing salt being harvested, and flying a drone. As I mentioned at the beginning of this blog, I had purchased the drone specifically for this trip as a new addition to my photography hobby. I had taken it out to a local park prior to the trip to get the basics of controlling it, but as soon as I got it out of the bag in Oman, it was like I had never seen it before...
Thankfully Jord was on hand to help, and soon the drone was in the air and capturing photos like the one above. My one regret is that I did not spend longer trying out different compositions, such was my nervousness about getting it back to me in one piece, not least because the number of other drones sharing the same airspace.
The same lesson, about trying different compositions with my camera, was to be learnt throughout the trip; I realised I had a habit of taking a few photos and then thinking "job done": anyone can take a photo, but composition and patience are skills that I needed to learn. One advantage of a trip like this is that you get to see other people's photos of the same scene. I cannot tell you the number of times I would look at another person's photo later on and think "including that, or excluding this, mades it so much better than mine".
Third stop: Wadi Al Arbeieen
Continuing our journey to Sur, we drove off-road to one of the many Wadis in Oman. Al Arbeieen is one of the most scenic, with clear turquoise waters and canyon landscapes. Across the Wadi was a thin strip of land, acting as a bridge, which is used by locals to transport food and other supplies to villages in the region.
We were privileged to be able to witness some boys and their donkeys traversing this land bank during our time there which made for an incredible scene.
Fourth stop: Tiwi
Tiwi was the location of a football field; nothing particularly unusual about that, you may think, but this one had a unique location, perched right by the ocean which had the potential for some interesting drone shots.
Our car arrived sometime after the others as we had made a short detour to look at some holiday apartments which Saif owns, and very nice they were too: I would certainly consider staying there should I return to Oman in the future. However this meant that everyone else in the group had already done their drone flying and I was the only one in Saif's car that had one.
I spotted that there were some electric cables quite high up which had the potential to bring the drone down, so I checked with Khalid whether it was ok to fly over them, to which he replied yes as long as there were no police around.
I duly, nervously, launched my drone and flew over the cables and as I was heading to the football field, I became aware of police sirens in the distance which seemed to be getting louder. "What shall I do????" I asked panicking, at which point everyone fell about laughing. Khalid was playing sound effects on his car stereo....
Final Stop: Sur boat factory
After checking in to our hotel, we visited the craftsmen working on the restoration of a traditional Al Ghanja ship. Unique to Oman, these ships were used for long distance voyages.
We were given free reign to walk around the boat yard, even climbing into the inside of the hull. This provided another opportunity on the trip for life-changing injuries as there was no floor and everyone had to balance on the beams. Everyone made it out, however!
