The last couple of days have seen us trawl up more marine life to analyse, quite a few technical problems, with a bit of gear, so have been kept busy with a few more challenging problems - the heat and humidy play funny games with electronics. Photos are of samples caught, lots of electric rays, sardines, various tropical fish , a few sea eels. The sunsets and sunrises are unlike anything I've ever seen before, as for getting sunburnt over here - it just doesn't happen with the haze in the air (from dust and sand) still very warm (32-35 degress [View Full Entry]

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Oman is the land of Forts. Many forts adorn the whole country. We visited a handful ourselves. My favorite: Nakhl Fort. Built into the side of the mountain...the building's elevation rises and falls with the topography of the mountain. Great design skill. [View Full Entry]

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Nizwa - the interior city. Nizwa (Arabic: نزوى‎) is the largest city in the Ad Dakhiliyah Region in Oman and was the capital of Oman proper. Nizwa is about 140 km (1.5 hours) from Muscat. The population is estimated at around 70,000 people. Set amid a verdant spread of date palms, it is strategically located at the crossroads of routes linking the interior with Muscat. Nizwa is a center for date growing. Dates from Nizwa (including Khalas and are known to be the best dates in the world). The main tourist attractions in the city are Nizwa Fort and th [View Full Entry]

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Wadi Shab 'Wadi' means 'dry river bed' (Wadi Shab is actually a wet river bed, a beautiful emerald green oasis in the desert). Wadi Shab is wadi in Oman and located between the capital Muscat and the town Sur, Oman. It has at least seven pools of emerald green water and is studded with boulders. One of the pools is in a cave where light streams in dramatically from above and there are fantastic echoes heard when one swims in it. Eventhough all guidebooks say you need a 4WD to get there...you can easily reach it in a regular car...thanks to [View Full Entry]

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Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque The Mosque is built from 300,000 tonnes of Indian sandstone. The total capacity of the mosque (interior and courtyard) is up to 20,000 worshippers. What to do with too much money? You hire indentured (modern-day slave) labor from India and flaunt the wealth by building a monument to God....ahem. And the monument happens to have a couple of record breakers (Largest Handwoven carpet and Largest chandelier in the world): The world's largest hand-woven carpet: A major feature of the design of the interior is the prayer carpet which covers the floor of t [View Full Entry]

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So have almost been at sea a week, completed a number of trawls , a huge range of exciting marine life to sample and sort, as we get closer to the Yemem boarder, more and more unlit fishing boats appear on the radar - so far no fishing boats have thrown rocks at us or opened fire on us - the closest has been a bunch shaking there fists and screening some arabic at the top of there lungs. The crew are all great to work with - nothings a problem, all the routines on the trawl deck , foredeck go [View Full Entry]

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I am now in Tashkent, Uzbekistan waiting for my flight to St Petersburg and have some “free” time (I know this could sound horrible to some) and finally found, after a long while, a viable internet connection. Oman Having traveled for a month in the Middle East, I arrived in Oman and was immediately struck by two things: (i) Oman is very clean (the country has won the prize of “Cleanest Country in the Middle East” ever since such a competition was first organized a couple of years ago) and (ii) there is almost no hassling/bargaining which was a (very) welcomed [View Full Entry]

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Had a fantastic couple of days in Dubai, visited many places, the skidubai centre rocked - kind of trippy that it's in the middle of a shopping mall!!! checked out the rest of the City - everything is on the largest scale you can imagine, an amazing place, I could and now have the option to live there, being able to Dive or Ski any day of the year is quite appealing!!! did a dunes safari which took me close the the Dubai Oman Boarder, had a fantastic time around the Dunes, quite entertaining - had to tow the other truck [View Full Entry]

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Some Photos of things I've seen. [View Full Entry]

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Driving tips for Oman: 1) Beware the rotaries. Arabs love rotaries. I don't think I saw a single stop light in Oman outside of Muscat. The only rule in a rotary is if you are in it, you have right-of-way. But you can change lanes in a rotary at a moment's whim and you can exit from any lane, which gets really interesting in a 3 and 4 lane rotary. 2) Beware the goats and camels. Goats seem to think that "pavement" means stop and look for the best grass for a while. Camels are deaf to honking. Goats occasionally will [View Full Entry]

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