I was given the opportunity to visit the latest venture by the Marina Bandar Rowdha. A ''submarine'' parked at Bandar Khayran which affords you the luxury of viewing the abundant sea life and seascape without getting your hair wet.
The boat takes you from Marina Bandar Rowdha to Bandar Khayran in 20 minutes to rendezvous with a smaller vessel where you embark on your tour of the coral and its life. Descending the steps, , into the keel where there are stools in front of each portal a total of x people can sit and watch the fish. It's like being in a large fish tank. You slowly move above the coral oohing and ahhing at the various fish and if you are lucky as we were , you get to see a Moral Eel poking its head out to gawp at the people looking out in wide-eyed fascination.
The tour lasts an hour and we saw at least 6 varieties of fish, Triggerfish, 2 types of butterfly fish, or was it 3?, something very similar to a parrot fish, domino fish, clownfish and one I couldn't identify on the chart which looked as though it had striped pajama bottons. Along with 3 forms of coral; brain , fan and one I can't remember (visual overload). Sea slugs litter the floor along with spiny black sea urchins with their spines ready to spear the unsuspecting; a species I can never forget as it tried to kill a young me (when I was 7 in Dubrovnik) but didn't succeed as you can attest to.
Sadly there are fools out there who think nothing of throwing their empty soda cans into the sea as I saw at least 4 of them and can only hope that this may be the future home of a coral and subsequent habitants. There was also coral damage and I brought this up later with the operators of Al Khayran who did say the draft of the boat is not so deep that it will touch the coral but they have noticed vessels who anchor amidst the coral. They did mention they have sent photographs of the coral damage to the Ministry of Environment - now I just wonder if anything will be done about it!
Its wonderful to see more opportunities for tourism opening up, along with the catamaran Azura, dhow trips up the coast, diving tours and assorted water activities and now the ''submarine'' , though I ought to mention this is not for the claustrophobic or non mobile people. I wish the Marina and its venture all the success.
The website for online bookings is http://www.alkhayran.com/ though at this time of posting the site was not up.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Friday, May 8, 2009
Lost in Barka
OK, not really lost in Barka, though you can go through the myriad roads off the the main road, some tarmac some roughly graded and as long as you know the general direction you can't really get lost. We've been going to Barka for almost 30 years and have seen the transformation from sleepy fishing village, to town size to the thriving sprawling township it is now. Houses springing up amongst the palm plantations, new roads connecting with existing paths. There is a large electricity/desalination plant on the Muscat side of Barka, after the fishing villages of Basit and Haradi and further up the coast the under construction project of Blue City of Madina al Zarqa. All this has helped the prosperity of Barka and the coastline where land prices had escalated all due to speculation. Prices have since been dropping due to the speculators outside the Gulf being hit with monetary challenges.
Somethings remain the same such as the fish market on the beach. The local municipality built shed with tiled floors and runnels to clear the mess but found that the fishermen preferred the beach. The shed is now used to clean the fish and sell frozen fish. The fish auction is held at one end of the beach with the auctioneer and his clerk sitting on the sand near the waters edge where the fishermen bring their catch to sell. On one instance I saw a fisherman take his catch after a price had been set and thought it was due to his price not being met, later I was told this is a common practice so the fishermen know how much to charge for their catch. The auction prices are in 10s of baiza so 1 rial is 10, I could understand the prices when he said 10 for a line of fish, but when he got to 70 I was shocked to find such prices bandied about (No wonder the price of fish is so high!), but learnt later that it was 7 rials! The prices are entered in the log book by the clerk, along with the name of the seller and a flat rate of 500 baizas per sale is collected from the various sellers at the end of day or week.
The names above the shops are also worth noting, in both the spelling and the english translations, ranging from furniture shops to garments. You can spell shoes 3 ways I found, though I am sure there are many more variations on that theme. Sometimes the nature of the shop does not share the same photograph on the board ... as seen in Ibra, "Sale of Mutton" on a board with a picture of a camel.
Tourism is also on the plans for Barka, with plans for opening Barka fort and renovating (again) Bait Na'maan the fortified house 5 km out of Barka. Bait Na'maan was used as a rest house for the Imam of Oman, hence it being fortified. Built on 3 floors similar in structure to a fort, it was used as a stopping place for the Iman between his journeys to or from Barka or Rustaq. There is an escape route
The original essence of the bullfights with the 3 ring human arena is no longer, having been replaced by a concrete ring with tiers, all supposed to be safer for the human audience. Before anybody gets their panties in a wad, it is NOT bullfighting ala Espagnole, this is 2 bulls who put heads together and try to push one another out of the ring, Bovine Sumo wrestling you may call it. The original venue was out in the open, with owners and judges in the centre, surrounded by the other owners and contestants tethered behind them and then a ring of viewers, either on foot or on top of vehicles. Part of the amusement or thrill was to wait for one of the contestants attempting or succeeding in escaping their owners and running out of the ring chased by an enthousiastic crowd, which would result in the onlookers scattering in the path of the bull. A sport that has taken off is horse racing, with little stables cropping up amongst the plantations. Meets are held along the Batinah coast mainly on Fridays.
Now that we have moved from the old farm to the new location it allows us to be more adventurous in terms of exploring the 'hood. Ha ha. Turn right from the gates and see where u end up, guaranteed never to bore you!
Somethings remain the same such as the fish market on the beach. The local municipality built shed with tiled floors and runnels to clear the mess but found that the fishermen preferred the beach. The shed is now used to clean the fish and sell frozen fish. The fish auction is held at one end of the beach with the auctioneer and his clerk sitting on the sand near the waters edge where the fishermen bring their catch to sell. On one instance I saw a fisherman take his catch after a price had been set and thought it was due to his price not being met, later I was told this is a common practice so the fishermen know how much to charge for their catch. The auction prices are in 10s of baiza so 1 rial is 10, I could understand the prices when he said 10 for a line of fish, but when he got to 70 I was shocked to find such prices bandied about (No wonder the price of fish is so high!), but learnt later that it was 7 rials! The prices are entered in the log book by the clerk, along with the name of the seller and a flat rate of 500 baizas per sale is collected from the various sellers at the end of day or week.
The names above the shops are also worth noting, in both the spelling and the english translations, ranging from furniture shops to garments. You can spell shoes 3 ways I found, though I am sure there are many more variations on that theme. Sometimes the nature of the shop does not share the same photograph on the board ... as seen in Ibra, "Sale of Mutton" on a board with a picture of a camel.
Tourism is also on the plans for Barka, with plans for opening Barka fort and renovating (again) Bait Na'maan the fortified house 5 km out of Barka. Bait Na'maan was used as a rest house for the Imam of Oman, hence it being fortified. Built on 3 floors similar in structure to a fort, it was used as a stopping place for the Iman between his journeys to or from Barka or Rustaq. There is an escape route
The original essence of the bullfights with the 3 ring human arena is no longer, having been replaced by a concrete ring with tiers, all supposed to be safer for the human audience. Before anybody gets their panties in a wad, it is NOT bullfighting ala Espagnole, this is 2 bulls who put heads together and try to push one another out of the ring, Bovine Sumo wrestling you may call it. The original venue was out in the open, with owners and judges in the centre, surrounded by the other owners and contestants tethered behind them and then a ring of viewers, either on foot or on top of vehicles. Part of the amusement or thrill was to wait for one of the contestants attempting or succeeding in escaping their owners and running out of the ring chased by an enthousiastic crowd, which would result in the onlookers scattering in the path of the bull. A sport that has taken off is horse racing, with little stables cropping up amongst the plantations. Meets are held along the Batinah coast mainly on Fridays.
Now that we have moved from the old farm to the new location it allows us to be more adventurous in terms of exploring the 'hood. Ha ha. Turn right from the gates and see where u end up, guaranteed never to bore you!
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