After the high from the turtle sightings, we hopped back in our cars and drove out to the closest campsite- behing the Ras AL Hadd Hotel. The drive was only about ten minutes, but I fell asleep as the guys were scouting out a good camp spot. We all stumbled out of the cars at 1 am, unloaded our tents, brushed teeth and crawled into our sleeping bags. That was all I remember.
(The Hotel)
This is what we woke up to:
Sullivan and the early risers scouting out the grounds.
The beach was very nice- pretty remote with only a family of early morning bathers and a fishing boat. There were tons of sardines swimming close to the beach. This dark shadow in the water is a school of sardines. Audrey thought that was pretty cool.
We were surprised to find a lot of turtle nests on this beach. The turtle ranger from the night before told us that we could only see nests at Ras Al Hadd. That there were not turtles on the other beaches. Well, there were definately nests here. The above pic is of soft turtle egg shells. Looked like they had hatched the previous night.
Sulivan standing infront of a nest. They were pretty deep and wide.
The beaches were full of these fishing shacks. Not a lot of fishers though. They were all empty.
Our find of the morning- a squat potty inside a vacant shack. Notice the tank of water on the left rigged up to it- so we could actually flush! Yeah!
Dhows in the harbour.
Last look of Ras AL Hadd. We packed up that morning after breakfast and headed north, back towards Sur. Our last stop was going to be the Wahiba Sand Dunes. This would put us closer on the map to home, and make the drive back a few hours shorter.
Stopping along the way to check out a beach. It was pretty rocky and slippery, so we decided to keep looking.
One our friends little girl- too cute of a pic! I had to include it!
Curtis and Michelle - our friends that caravaned across Oman with us.
The beach we settled on was in a town called Fins . Fins is located along the east coast on the Salmah Plateau. There were a lot of amazing Wadi Hikes around here. We will definately have to come back and check them out. It was another beautiful white sandy beach. Not surprisingly, we had to do a bit of off-roading to get there. It is a popular beach, and there were a lot of tents set up for the holiday. I think if you came back another weekend you might just be lucky and have the beach all to yourself.
Audrey and Quin snorkled over by these cliffs. They saw all sorts of fish- tarpins, puffer fish, sardines, parrott fish and more.
Our last touristy destination of this trip was to play in the Wahiba Sand Dunes. The desert is the whole essence of Arabia. Our kids love to climb and jump around this sandy landscape.
It was pretty warm on the dunes as we arrived about noon. Amazing how hot the sand was. It really burned your bare feet.
Nothing cooler than seeing bedouin and camels while visiting the sand dunes.
I love the contrast of these lush date plantations against the harsh sandy desert.
Last glimps of Al Mintarib as we leave the dunes.
A great trip! Oman always makes me want to come back and explore more!
