Beach Recon Force (sort of)

My wife and I went on a recon mission to areas east of Muscat to find good beach for ourselves and our dogs, Charlie and Mabel. It turned out to be a late afternoon trip after we had driven half way across Muscat before I realized I didn't have my wallet :-\

But it was an interesting adventure. I drove my wife's car, a 2008 Kia Sportage... I have the exact same car in a standard transmission so I could meat out some more power out of the four bean cans they call cylinders, but she doesn't like the way I drive standards, so we drove her automatic. We didn't know exactly where we were going, but we found some pretty steep roads along the way. Roads that made our little 4 cylinder Sportage go from sounding like a coffee grinder full of pennies to a high speed blender full of angry bees. The car endured, but not without some butt clenching moments over some steep dropp offs with roads at the bottom that not only turned but banked away from your turn!

First stop was the Oman Dive Center just to check the place out. Great place. It has a beach (or a mud flat if the tide is out). There are boats there to take you out snorkelling or scuba diving to the various hot spots along the coast. PADI certified diving instructors can license you in a four day course for about 170 OMR. They have a restaurant, grass shack looking bungalows and a bar. They have a whole range of prices on the bungalows depending on the time of year.

Next stop was Yitti Beach or Yetti Beach (I hope not the latter - though I think I was the only one there with big feet). We especially liked the Al Moosa Hotel (for obvious naming reasons). We never went inside, though we think we were accosted by one of their guests who had way too much to drink. It appears to be a great shell gathering spot. The sand is really loose, but I noticed (as I'm a geologist), that the sand has a great deal of sparkling black "galena", a lead ore mineral oddly enough. It seems to sluice out during low tide along the surface of the sand. It was a nice little walk. Rhanda's Sportage had to stick to the firmer sand. It would have probably handled the loose stuff, but we didn't want to find out if it didn't the hard way.

Moose, the geologist strikes a pose! -------->

We continued our drive through the mountains under a setting sun as we kept trying to see what was just around the next bend on the mountains. You really can't close your eyes or even blink while you are driving these winding roads or you'd find yourself doing a double inverted sommersault with a twist before hitting the rocks about fifty to one hundred meters below you...

We eventually found the town of As Saifah. In this town, you can see Omani women in traditional Omani dress (very colorful), unlike Muscat where women seem to all dress in black (I was told it was a Saudi fashion that spread to Oman)... I really wish they'd return to their traditional dress. The Muscat local markets look like a penguin roosting ground to outsiders... I know, I know... different customs... Continuing on... Saifah was nice. There appear to be good places for camping here, but Yitti is probably nicer for a tent spot. Saifa has a town at one end of the beach and a construction area at the other.

We turned around and went back home. I picked up my photos from the studio (I was trying my hand at photographing a couple of galaxies and nebulae with my 10" Orion Atlas telescope using film. Nothing turned out).