It's the 1st day back at school at work today. We used too love Sundays back in Australia, but not any more.
Alex went off to school in his usual happy state, he has swimming lessons as his 1st class, so that makes his pretty happy. At lunch time I had to meet James at the KTM workshop in Al Quoz, his bike is due for it's 1st service. I had to take him back to work, it was nice to see him during the work day.
We had a pretty nice weekend. On Friday we went on a tour with Arabian Nights. We were meant to go up to the Musandam Fjords in the Hommus Straight at the northern most tip of Oman, instead we were taken to Dibba on the north east coat of Oman.
The driver picked us up around 8:30am. We were the 1st in the mini bus, so we sat patiently while we drove around Dubai and picked up another 5 passengers. After half and hour or so we were on our way so we settled in for the 2 hour trip to the boarder.
After an hour or so we stopped off just outside a little town called Massafi. Massafi is well know for the production of spring water, though looking from the outside it's hard to believe that such an arid looking place could produce any water at all.
The street leading into town (if you can call it a town) if lined with markets that sold carpet rugs, fruit & veg, hundreds of blow up toys and all sorts of bits and bobs. We spent 20 minutes wandering, James tried is hand at doing some bargaining and managed to beat a man down to 100 dirums for a beautiful wall hanging, only to look in the wallet to realise we had no cash on us. We left empty handed, which is probably a good thing, the poor market men weren't very happy though.
We arrived at the Port of Dibba and bordered our Dhow. It was decked out with rugs, pillows, sun beds, fruit platters a tea and coffee station and a BBQ to cook us lunch. We were set, all we needed to to now was to wait for the other passengers to board. Little did we know we were about to be surrounded by Russians and Kasacks. As soon as they were on board they ripped off their clothes and were more than happy to spend the day in their budgie smugglers...........Not a pretty sight!
We cruised up the coast for an hour, then pulled into a bay for a swim and snorkel. Alex was pretty apprehensive to get into the water, but he got there eventually. We gave him a life jacket to hold onto so he could just sit on the surface with his mask on. James and I took it in turns staying on top while the other had a good look around. It wasn't the best snorkeling that we've done, but it was still nice to get in the water and explore. The water was very warm and uncomfortable in some some parks. There was a nice current that came through every couple of minutes that was nice a cool, which made for a nice change.
When we got back on the dhow we lunch enjoyed a delicious lunch of Arabian salad, curry, bbq'd fish & chicken and rice. With our belly's full and bodies tired we started to make our way back down the coast to Dibba. Most of the Europeans lied down and took a nap, while we made the most of the peace and quiet ourselves and took some snapshots. I then got out my book and did a caught read a few chapters of New Moon, yes I'm still going with that book : )
It took us a couple of hours to get home, which wasn't until 7:30pm. We were absolutely stuffed so we ordered some Thai take away and ended the day in front of the TV. Even though we were sent on the wrong tour, we still had a lovey day. I'm now waiting to hear back from the manager of the Arabian Nights tour company to see if they are going to send us on the right tour for no extra cost. I think we'll be lucky to have that happen!!
