At the sea
Tides can be quite high - tidal differences in sea level can be more than 3 metres. That makes a big difference at the shoreline of the very slowly sloping sandy beach - sometimes more than 100 metres.
Low tide is perfect for a walk - or as some Omanis like - a car ride on the beach. At low tide it is possible to walk to nearby islands, to get a view of Ras Al-Sawadi.
A close look at the "sand" reveals its beauty.
Although our intention was to dive a lot in Oman, local circumstances made us change our plans.
Marine life at Juzor al-Daymaniyat was good - lots of fish that weren't shy, and an unspoiled coral reef. Visibility was not great but OK. For us the sea was quite cool: only 24°C - not the 28-30°C that we were used to in Thailand. That was something we had expected and had been prepared for (a 5mm shorty with integrated hood over a 5mm long john will do the job).
But the way the diving guides at the local diving shop behaved with paying customers, the way they planned the daytrips (customers waiting for hours for high tide to make the dive-boat afloat from low tide sand beach) and poor facilities on the diving boats (no functional windshield for a 40km ride under windy conditions, no toilet for 10 customers on a 5 hour day trip) and all the mess around with the diving gear after returning convinced us to spend our money for other activities. This diving shop has to learn a lot and substantially improve before it will achieve the standards of all the other diving shops we have been diving with during the last 13 years.
These are the famous "sashahs" - fishing boats made of leafs of date palm trees. The stems are tied together with palm fibres - or nowadays with synthetic ropes.
We saw the boats at Saham - close to Sohar.
