Jan 10 2024

Masirah…Mishaps, Beaches, Shells and inter-tidal life…

(previously published 28/2/2023 on vickystravelinthemiddleeastandbeyond.worpress.com)

As we had arrived on Masirah a day early, we had no hotel booking for the night, but we did have a new pop-up tent to christen that night so not worrying about a place to stay we headed off to our favorite beaches to pound out some kilometers and hopefully find a few shell treasures on the tideline.

A few treasures found on our first beach, we then beached hopped down the East coast of the island with the Indian ocean waves breaking gently along the shoreline, taking in the beautiful views of this wild coastline. There are currently a couple of Dhow wrecks along the East coast.One from several years ago which is now pretty much disintegrated but two are intact , the one below beached…

From June to September the monsoon or Khareef that dominates the Dhofar coastline further south also affects Masirah and the Indian ocean turns into wild and raging seas.

Early evening we drove back to Hilf, the ferry port and the only town on the island to get some dinner. We decided to eat at the Park inn, which serves an excellent curry and fresh juices and then we drove to a remote beach on the East coast to camp.

The pop-up tent popped up beautifully, I had bought camping lights in Dragonmart in Dubai so we were well lit as we manipulated the air beds we have into the tent….hmm, the tent advertised as a 3 person tent wouldn’t fit our air beds so we ended up with the air beds halfway up the tent walls…a 3 very small person tent with no air beds methinks!

Not to be defeated, we just thought ok, so be it, we will sleep, we are tired and we did….for a while! The OH is tall, actually taller than the tent is long and around 2am I woke to much groaning and kerfuffle and the OH trying to make a swift exit out of our 3 man tent (not!) as he had woken with cramp from not being able to stretch out his body length…

He decided to sleep in the car so I had loads of space and fell back to sleep instantly. Before dawn the wind picked up and the flapping of the air vents woke me …then I realized water was dripping onto my face and head and probably my blanket…switched on the torch and the tent roof was covered in water droplets from the humidity….a swift exit to join the OH in the car, but sleep was long gone and as we were on the beach I enjoyed a magical predawn and sunrise experience, what a start to the day!

We had decided to visit the Sur Masirah beaches…this area is a shell collectors holy grail…this area is home to the exquisitely beautiful Punctacteon eloiseae (Abbott, 1973)

I found one of these shells once , in the water pools at low tide out on the sand flats. It was an exquisite moment and as the shell is fairly rare, I would be very lucky to find another one…

Punctacteon eloiseae (Abbott, 1973)…this is the one I found, makes me very happy to share it here…

But first we passed by a very old cemetery on the hillside. Normally, in a Muslim burial the body is wrapped in white cloth, placed in a shallow grave and covered in stones but in the centre of the cemetery is the resting place for some of the early settlers in Masirah from the Hadramaut area of Yemen….

Today was the lowest tide of the week of low tides and a good day to walk on the sand flats. Having found the Eloiseae shell previously, I feel very lucky and am not imbued with the desire to search for more so I’m happy to walk out on the sands looking at everything that normally is covered by the sea.

What’s a colour-fest! Vivid greens, oranges, reds, blues and even a yellow….anemones, sponges and sea squirts all exposed for a few short hours with crabs and starfish to add to the interest….a lovely few hours and over 10,000 steps on sand, a win-win afternoon….

A little swing way out on the beach tip…

Apr 28 2020

Zanzibar: Intensely blue skies and rainbow sunsets- Part 2…

Zanzibar, June 2017: After a couple of days at the north of the island, I felt that the final day and night we had booked up there was wasted time, we had seen everything at the North tip and because I think you know by now if you read this blog, I’m not a beach bunny… I want to go somewhere and see it all.

I wanted time in Stonetown, I’d been reading up on the history and whilst you can say “Oh, we’ll come back another time”, well, practically, you probably won’t return and I so wanted to see Stonetown… so much history and the historical connection to Oman, another of my travel places, (a link about the connection history ) Slavery was a big part of the connection, sadly…

So, after breakfast, I found a room in an old traditional hotel in Stonetown at a good price (wifi and online booking is such a godsend in this day and age, instant confirmation…let’s go!) we cut our losses at Kendwa and headed off to town.

Stonetown is utterly fascinating and I was in my element, poking around the ancient streets, checking out the doors… see links to my earlier posts about the doors and old town , my Stonetown desire was all about the historical doors initially…

We went on a walkabout, we had about 36 hours in town and sleep could be minimal.

What a place… such history, such vibrancy, I just loved Stonetown.

At sunset, we headed down to the main beach, with everyone else in town, it appeared.

Sunset was a big moment that night, the streets were humming with life, street food everywhere, it was totally unexpected and so vibrant.

It was just after Eid, so I think that after Ramadan, there were a lot of people out, enjoying the beautiful moment after a month of piety …The beach was packed, loads of people in the water as the sun went down, swimming, playing, and enjoying life…

it was lovely to be part of the exuberant crowd and catch the glorious Stonetown sunset…

Apr 25 2020

Zanzibar: Intensely blue skies and rainbow sunsets- Part 1

2017: An Africa trip, Mafia island (yes, really, it’s called Mafia island, just had to go there when it came to trip planning, Mafia will get a post of its own soon) Zanzibar and Dar Es Salaam were the places for the trip plan.

Zanzibar was the “sunset over the sea” place of the trip.

In Zanzibar, we were perfectly placed for a sunset view towards the African coast, and the sunsets were really something else.

African light is just different, possibly the lack of air pollution… I don’t know why, I have no science knowledge, but I do notice on my travels that in remoter areas there is just a different clarity of light and intensity of color in the sky, day and night. So different from what I have been used to in Europe and Dubai.

We arrived at the Kendwa Rocks hotel late afternoon, drove up to Nungwi beach at the tip of the island, and just strolled along the beach, soaking up the atmosphere of this unique island, but out across the sea, an African sky drama was happening, a potential storm moving around in the distance, flooding the skies with drama and it was the backdrop to our walk, light and dark playing out in the distance until the sun finally set in vivid color…a beautiful experience to look back on.

Please enjoy my photos of the Zanzibar skies…