DIVING IN OMAN – APRIL 2001

Dave Hall & Paul Harman

The Sultanate of Oman is situated on the south east corner of the Arabian peninsular, an oil rich state that has recently started to toy with tourism (the oil will run out someday folks, no more internal combustion engines).

Our flight to Oman took around 12 hours due to an emergency stop at Frankfurt, one of the 47 (yes 47!) passengers having had a heart attack. We arrived at our hotel late afternoon on Thursday 18^th April, Oman being 4 hours in front of the U.K.

Our hotel was pretty basic!

We had a reasonable room and continental breakfast, with Indian and Belly dancers for evening entertainment. Oman has a more liberal outlook than other Gulf states so yes, you can get a beer at all the main hotels and some of the many Indian Restaurants which are of excellent value and quality. You are expected to dress appropriately and shorts and T-shirts are not really accepted outside of hotels and pool areas.

How the other half of the local population live - one of the many Royal Palaces Dave and Paul saw, but did not get invited into....

Friday morning, Paul and I met Bill Wagland at breakfast, he had arrived two days earlier and was also diving with Scuba-way. Bill knew the set up and seemed to be fluent in Arabic so getting around during the evenings seemed to go without a hitch.

Our first dive was at Fahar Island, some 30 minutes boat ride from the dive centre, most other dive sites were usually 15 minutes away. We usually arrived at the Blue Zone Dive Centre around 9 a.m. and by 9.35, the boat had been loaded by the staff and we were away, usually arriving back at the Marina at 12.30 – 1.00 after 2 dives. The rest of the day was spent sitting around the pool, having lunch and a few drinks until we were picked up by our hotel driver named Siff.

The marine life around the Oman is prolific to say the least, on most dives we would see Moray eels in abundance, far more than you would see in one week’s diving the Northern Red See. Turtles, Eagle Rays, Devil Rays and Sting Rays were also to be seen on most dives. On one dive, one very large turtle decided he wanted to buddy up and dive with us.

The most memorable dive was a dive called the blue window. This dive started by entering a cave which ran for about 25-30m in total darkness then opened out into the blue. As we were coming into the window, two very large Sting Rays were coming towards us. No-one had their torches on so the rays kept coming until Paul turned his pocket torch on and they turned and swam back to the blue. This, for me, will never be forgotten in my whole life. It is really up there with seeing a large basking shark in Ireland!

The corals seem to be totally untouched due to the lack of divers. On most days we were the only dive boat on the ocean with an average of maybe 8 divers per day. During surface intervals, snorkelling seemed to be the norm, due to the number of black tip reef sharks that frequent all the rocks and shallows. On one snorkel, one of the divers counted 20 reef sharks in one area. Whale sharks were also spotted by Gobi who ran the boat but none of these were seen by anyone else, maybe it is just some good marketing by the Dive Centre, you know, “I saw a whale shark while you were all below the surface”!

The dreaded Crown of Thorns Sea Star, destroyer of reefs (when they get too plentiful) are tolerated in Oman.

The diving in the Oman has only scratched the surface and there are probably many dive sites that have not yet been discovered. Most of the diving has only been dived by the ex Patriot Community, so there seems to be a great opportunity for UK divers to have a great time driving the Arabian sea without any over-crowded dive site. The Oman Government seems to have a good idea of how they want their tourism to develop and, thankfully, dive sites will be protected from very early on, not like Egypt who are desperate for your money.

Paul and I travelled with Scuba-Way, the Package included bed and breakfast, return flights and 10 dives for around £820.00. Gulf Air travel to the Oman daily and you need to have a VISA before you travel. Blue Zone run a very good operation, there are other dive centres around Muscat but, in my opinion, if you want to chill out, Blue Zone will help you chill!!

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