Muscat: On the Water

If you go to Muscat, you must go out on the water with the remarkably genial Captain Salim, or -- as we did -- with his equally genial son, Akhdar. (Captain Salim was busy driving a boat to Oman from Bahrain. Better him than us.) The text messages alone will be worth it. There is also a little matter of honey cake (made by the Akhdar's mother) and Arabian coffee on board.

It was sweltering as we waited at the marina's bar (yes, that's another reason to love Oman) for our ride. But when we got out on the water, the weather was perfect. Breezy, even.

And....there were dolphins!  Big, graceful ones, giant versions the small graceful ones we saw on our last trip to Oman. And *lots* of them -- more dolphins than we'd ever seen all at once. Apparently, it wasn't too special. Akhdar told us he'd once seen a pod a kilometer long.

Akhdar was a clearly worried we wouldn't get to see dolphins; we kept insisting that it was amazing just to be out on the water. We meant it. The coast is beautiful, orange and rocky against the deep blue of water and sky.

We stopped to swim near a reef, when the honey cake suddenly found a whole new purpose. It turns out, fish like honey cake as much as we do; Akhdar threw in a few tiny pieces, and fish came storming over.  With just goggles and flippers, we drifted through the coral reef, where we ran into purple butterfly fish, big greeny-blue fish, little yellow guys, and even a few turtles! They're easy to spot when they pop up to breathe. But unlike us, they only do that once every half hour.

And then it was back again, to our friendly marina with its beer on tap. Oman, we love you.