Thursday: Pushed off the beach at 10.30 am. Perfectly calm. Six and a half kph, occasion-ally seven. Max speed recorded on GPS

8. Stopped at small beach and cove on the head-land that separates Khor Sharia and Ahmed’s Khor (where Mark and I went). Rested only fifteen min-utes or so.

Thought I’d avoid Lima because of the village, though it looked as though there was a good deal of deserted beach to the right (north) of the village. Headed for the next Khor, sun setting. Small beach with a few houses. Everything dark grey and mauve. Mountain coastline merging with the sea and the sea blending with the sky, a sort of marbled effect.

Couldn’t go back to Lima, so landed. Four houses, four families (see Google Earth). Half a dozen men and some younger boys came to meet me. All very curious. One stood out from the rest. Very present-able type, spoke some English: Ahmed Hassan.

I asked if I could stay the night. They helped me pull up the kayak. Ahmed wanted to know where I had come from, where I was going. I told him. He said he was a police officer at the Customs Office in

Khasab. Prior to that he had worked at the Customs-post at Thabit (the Omani border at Sham). He asked if I had a passport and visa. I offered to show him, but he said no need. No problem.

They then all left to let me prepare for the night and have my meal. Ahmed offered me a roof for the night. I declined. He then said he’d come back when I was settled. He told me he had four houses in various locations. How one family had moved from Lima and settled in Dubai. They never came back. His father was here, an older man with one eye. The place was called Marawi.

He showed with his torch the way the track went up

Sea Kayaking Notes:

Solo paddle around the Musandam Peninsula

Four day kayak trip around Musandam from Dibba to Ghalilah.

Evening light, paddling along the coast near Lima to eventually stop for the night at Marawi.

Stop for a breather.

through the gap between the tip of Ras Marawi and the island at the point. Rudder touched the bottom.

At Marawi one of the boys had told me that high tide was at 6.30 pm. I made a mental note of this for the Bab Musandam crossing. Absolutely no landing places between Marawi and Khor Habalayn. Ras Marawi, then Ras Samid, then on the other side of Khor Qabal, Ras Secun, then high vertical cliffs all the way to Ras Sarkan at Khor Habalayn.

Fortunately it was flat calm with no wind whatso-ever. This would be a difficult stretch in rough or windy weather. Didn’t know what landing spots there were on the southern side of Khor Habalayn, but knew there was one quite near Ras Dillah to the north. So kept paddling and crossed Khor Habalayn.

the narrow wadi to the settlement in the mountains. Jebel Khatamah, where his family also had a house. He would get a boat back to Khor Negd on Friday afternoon, then by car to Khasab, ready for work on Saturday morning. Helicopters sometimes took them. They landed at Lima, but also on occasion at Marawi.

I showed him my GPS, checked our position on the map. He was very much on the ball. Read the map straight off, told me the names of places.

Tuna and sweet corn with milk for supper. Also Arab bread and cheese. Tomato soup. Tea. Raisin cake. Slept well.

Friday: Left at 7.30am. Flat calm. Ahmed had told me that there was a mili-tary base at Khor Qabal, the next Khor along, and that it was a forbid-den area. So no resting place there. Just squeezed

First night’s stop: Light fading nearing the tiny hamlet of Marawi.

Paddling past Ras Dillah at the en-trance to Khor Haba-layn. Photo taken by American couple in a powerful motor boat on a previous occa-sion (hence I’m pad-dling in the wrong direction.)

Shisah and make for the beach Tim and I withdrew to after having failed to get through Bab Musandam.

About an hour and a half from point to point. In addition another hour or fifty minutes rounding Ras Khaysah finger and paddling in to the bay the other side round Ras Qabr Al Hindi.

Saw a dozen or more twitching fins, long, black, thin and curved, near the rock. Very close to my kayak. Sharks perhaps? Two osprey flew over head. Later saw them perched on the second rock island off the finger Ras Khaysah.

In the evening, rounding Ras Al Hindi, saw four rays somersaulting in the air. Saw one do this earlier on the first day. Very strange antic. Like tossed pan-cakes, but squarish, grey on one side then white on the other. Quite a high leap. Several feet in the air.

As I headed for the beach in the last of the sun’s rays, a large powerful launch bore down on me from behind. I knew it wasn’t a fishing boat and turned to greet it fearing the worst. Sure enough, an Omani Coast Guard motor launch with three men on deck, one with a gun in his hands.

The captain spoke good English. Asked where I had come from. I said Lima. And before Lima, he asked.

One hour to get across the mouth of the Khor. Couldn’t see a beach and didn’t fancy adding to my mileage by going back into the Khor, so decided to paddle on. Saw a beach in the bay immediately around the point, but decided to carry straight on across the next Khor – Gubbat Ash Shabus.

Headed on for the beach Tim and I camped on on the last trip. All the way flat calm. Parallel to the rock that sticks out in the middle of the shallow curved bay I noted a landing spot. But if one had got this far, better to go a bit further to the beach at the top corner where the finger of Ras Khaysah starts. This is where Tim and I camped before. I pulled in. Still dead calm. Coming across this bay I saw a fishing boat. As far as I remember the only boat I had seen all day. On this stretch very few fishing boats com-pared with the west coast down to Khasab. Spent an hour there.

Didn’t feel like stopping so early in the day, and well rested so decided to make the big crossing of Khor

Second night, on a beach round the cor-ner from Ras Qabr Al Hindi, and near the entrance to the Musandam Gate (Bab Mu-sandam). Across the water, Iranian Baluch-istan.

Camping in Khor Habalayn on an earlier occasion.

I said Dibba. Where are you going? I said Khasab. Do you have a passport and visa. Yes. Can I see it? I point to the beach and to my unreachable hatch covers. He dismisses that idea. And takes my name and address. Then he relaxes. Says it’s dangerous. I say I’ve done it before. Point to my sponsons tucked under the bungee cords. Explain that with this device I am unsinkable. Also that I have plenty of food and water. He clearly thinks I’m daft. ‘Only one of you?’ (No one understands this.) Why no friend? You are going to sleep here? As he heads off, he shouts, ‘You need a girlfriend to keep you warm.’

The beach not as nice as I had remembered it. As it was the place we had retreated to after a frightening attempt to get through Bab Musandam last time, no doubt my memories were coloured. I somehow pic-tured a sweeping curve of fine white sand with palm leaf sunshades. Anyway, it was very good as Musan-dam beaches go, all coral pebbles, no sand. Small patch of almost flat ground above the high tide level.

At night, the sea breaking on the beach formed an arc of electric light. Mesmerising. Also as it washed around a half submerged rock. The play of light was fantastic, darting this way and that. Fish leaping out in the bay caused periodic flashes of light.

Put a rock on the beach to mark the high water mark.

Above and Below: Perfect calm heading to-wards the Musandam Gate (Bab Musandam) - known by sailors as Dead Man’s Gap.

Moved it periodically as the tide came in. Reckoned that high tide was around 7.30 pm. This meant I had timed it nicely for Bab Musandam the next morning. Should hit it at the slack at around 8 am.

Saturday: Got up at 6 am as usual woken by my watch alarm. Made a cup of tea in the dark, had some cereal. Small cartons of long life milk good for trips like this. Packing getting more efficient and quick. Lots of dry bags. One for clothes, one for sleeping bag and thermarest, one for gas stove and mess kit, two for food. Enough food for a week or more, plus nuts and raisins, dates, energy bars of one kind and another, raisin cake, almond cake, tiny tins of sweetened condensed milk, 48 small bottles of Masafi water. If the weather turned nasty, I could sit it out on a beach like this for days if need be.

Looked out over the sea. Thirty-five kilometers due east across the Strait of Hormuz was the coast of Ira-nian Baluchistan. Midstream out there the tidal flow, according to my Admiralty chart, was about 3 knots. It didn’t say what the maximum flow was through the Musandam Gap, merely showed a few wavy lines to indicate that this was an area where there is a tide rip with standing waves or overfalls.

All this food, water and gear made the 17-foot kayak weigh a ton, but made it very stable in the water. Au-guring well for the passage through the Musandam Gap, a pod of dolphins described effortless arcs as they surfaced close to the beach.

I paddle cautiously up towards the gap between Ras Al Bab and Musandam Island – the north eastern tip of the peninsula. This time I keep close to the cliffs of the headland. Not a ripple in sight. Paddle out midstream and find I’m barely drifting. Now head west across the top of Musandam towards Khor Khumzar. See a beach with a house or two at the end of Khor Maawi, just before Khor Khumzar. When Tim and I struggled along here last year in fading light it must have been out of sight or we’d have headed for it.

Everything has been so smooth. I’ve completed the east coast section turned the corner through the gap, the weather still perfect, just a pleasant, cold breeze to keep one feeling fresh. The passage across the top could be done in no time at all. I make for the Khor Tim and I got to last year, just before Kumzar. On the way fifty or more boats with powerful outboard motors stream past me. Like a James Bond movie.

Khor Sharyah seen from an abandoned Shehhi settlement. Photo taken on a previous trip.

They are on their way across the Strait to Iran.

Greeted by fishermen. All very intrigued. Invited into majlis where I am left with a thermos of sweet tea. I take photos of boats and men. The name of the place – Khor Mangal.

Move on after a half hour stop. Pull around into Khor Kumzar. Small beach. Pull in there. See the vil-lage of Kumzar at the end of the Khor. Paddle down

towards it, but don’t land on the beach as I need to be heading on. See people on the beach. Take a few photos and head out now making for the northwest-ern tip of the Peninsula, the other potentially difficult point with strong tidal currents.

Notice a beach at the end of the first of the Khors after Khor Kumzar – Khor Ar Ran.

Excellent weather. At the northwestern headland,

Ras Shuraytah, expect to see still water, thinking I have hit the slack. But find a long line of standing waves on the island side of the gap. I keep close to the headland side. No problem, but find my kayak being pulled around as I move across the eddy line. A few vigorous sweeping strokes straightens me out and I paddle for it, not wanting to find myself being dragged into the overfalls.

As to be expected, a certain amount of cross chop around the headland. I know there is a beach just opposite the naval base on Um Al Ghanam Island. I plan to pull in there for a break, but change my mind when I find myself suddenly in the middle of a stretch of rapids like standing waves. I paddle like fury with quick short low wide strokes to keep my balance as the backward breaking waves almost slew me around broadside. Heart rate speeds up consider-ably. Once through the tide rip I don’t fancy pulling in to the beach but find another nicer one just a short way further on. Stop there. Take some photos of the mosque and base on the island opposite.

Carry on down the channel between the island and the headland – Khor Al Quwayy. From the look of the prow of the kayak moving through the wa-ter it feels as if I am making good progress. I stop paddling and look at my GPS. Discover that I am moving at 5kph, backwards. The tide is against me. Paddling at full strength I make 1.5 kph. This makes sense as my normal cruising speed in good condi-tions is 6.5 kph.

About half way down the channel the wind begins to rise. It gets rougher. I am making very slow prog-ress. I know I have to get to the other side of Khor Ghubb Ali, near the entrance of which is a beach. Conditions worsening by the minute.

Coming around the southern end of the island the cross chop is bad, worse than anything I can remem-ber having encountered before. The wind is com-ing from the west to my side. My hat is blown back held on by the chin strap. There are a lot of white caps now. The kayak is getting slapped around a fair

Aerial view of Khumzar, where they speak Baluchi. I avoided stopping at the town in case officials asked to see my passport, as I had no visa for Oman.

bit. The troughs between waves are very short. The kayak surges through the top of each wave then gets slapped down hard into the trough. From time to time waves break against my midriff and chest.

The kayak feels very stable though. The thing is to go with the motion of the waves, varying one’s stroke as required, occasionally delaying or even skipping a stroke. I find I can keep up a pretty regu-lar rhythm of long slow strokes.

Imperceptible progress, but with the paddle pulling through the waves the kayak is made more stable, the paddle acting as an outrigger.

I know I have to get past the mighty headland of Ras Khutaymah the far end of which is Khor Ghub Ali. It is this vast block of mountain that is causing all the confusion at its feet, for as the waves rebound off it they form counter waves which meet the oncoming ones. The result is random turbulence. When oncom-ing and rebounding waves meet they double in size and break vertically rather than horizontally.

I find waves breaking over me from either side. And all the smaller stuff is very spiky. The wind picks up the spray which lashes against one’s life jacket and every now and then into one’s face.

I have already been paddling for eight hours and by now would ordinarily be feeling done in. But once the battle is on the body seems to find extraordinary staying power.

The excitement is tremendous. I want to shout, but tell myself to calm down and concentrate – rather like a violinist playing a Presto movement in some heart stirring symphony: all around tympani, wind and strings are going hell for leather creating surg-ing emotion, yet each musician has somehow got to keep dispassionate counting the bars, playing the notes precisely and not missing a beat. (As a matter of fact, I did allow myself to shout ‘Come on Ghub Ali’ at one point.)

The sun had gone down by the time I landed on the beach. I wouldn’t have cared to continue out there in the dark. I secure the kayak, unpack, dry myself off and get into warm clothing.

While doing this, happening to look seawards through the vertical walls of the entrance to the Khor, I saw a yellow flare falling through the dark-

ening sky. A fishing boat in trouble no doubt; un-able to restart an outboard motor and adrift perhaps. Not much I could do, so I carried on laying out my ground sheet thinking that the use of distress signals was something I should look into.

I had in fact seen a small boat with two men on board apparently just tossing about in the waves. With night falling and the uncomfortable state of the sea it seemed a strange time to carry on fish-ing. Whatever the case, someone must have been in trouble because very soon after a police launch with searchlight scanning the waves entered the Khor.

I had my head torch on at the time and must have been seen. Within minutes it had pulled up in front of me, its searchlight scanning back and forth across the beach and finally resting on me. I waved feebly towards the blinding light as it edged nearer. ‘Anna Kayaker’, I shouted. ‘You OK?’ Came the reply. ‘Yes, no problem,’ I shouted.

Landsat photo from space of the Musandam Peninsula. The starting point of the trip is out of the picture, bottom right.

It immediately turned away giving me a glimpse of its blue and white hull and the letters spelling Police. Once they were gone I cooked my evening meal – two cups of tomato soup, a tinned steak and kidney pie, and a whole tin of rice pudding, an apple and or-ange. Lying snug in my sleeping bag in the few mo-ments before I dropped off to sleep, it felt as if the earth itself were tossing and swaying beneath me. In addition, my blistered hands felt tight and sore and I ached from one elbow upwards and right across the top of my back and down to my other elbow. That had really been some workout.

Sunday: Up to this point I had carried a spare paddle, as all the books say one should. However, just before setting off at 7 that morning, I climbed some way up the rocky slope above the beach and, with immense relief, hid my spare paddle behind a boulder. I then noted the position on my GPS. (See Google Earth for co-ordinates.)

Anyone passing that way is welcome to it. Now the reason for this odd act is this. Some paddles can be split into two halves. These can easily and neatly be stowed under the deck bungee cords behind the cockpit. Other paddles have a single shaft and, what’s more, their blades may be feathered, i.e. the blade on one end stands at right angles to the blade on the other.

Screen shot of Google Earth showing where the paddle is hid. Anyone finding it is wel-come to it. Here are the co-ordinates: 26 16.589N, 56 19.785E

Such paddles cannot easily be stowed on the deck, and in fact are downright dangerous, as I perfectly well knew before setting out. The problem with them is that they are so long they have to be stowed in front of the cockpit, and because of the angle of the blades, one blade is always sticking up, either catch-ing the wind or worse still digging in to the waves along with the front of the cockpit and thus levering the kayak into a somersault capsize.

I knew this from experience, having capsized thus when surfing down a wave off Jumeirah Beach in Dubai. Before setting out on this trip I weighed the pros and cons of carrying this single shaft spare paddle and decided, on balance, to take it. But now, after yesterday's difficult passage, I knew one hun-dred percent I had to abandon it.

In any case, I had my working paddle tethered to the kayak with a length of bungee cord, so even should it be blown out of my hands – as almost happened on one occasion – I could still retrieve it.

Pulling out of Khor Ghub Ali early that morning I

immediately felt immense relief at having a paddle free deck in front of me. There was still a lot of cross chop with white cresting waves as I exited the Khor, but it was quite manageable. All I had to do now was to cross the 14 kilometre mouth of Khasab Bay and then I’d be on the home straight down to Sham and Galilah across the Oman-UAE border.

To begin with, however, I headed down the coast waiting to see if the wind picked up, in which case I would work my way the long way around the bay. Before long I judged conditions to be good and decided to go for it, direct to the distant point of Ras Sheikh Masud.

Below: Khor Haffa, near Dibba, at the start of the trip. Photo taken on a previous occa-sion.

APS looking younger and fitter.

The very changeableness of the sea is what makes long paddling trips so interesting. Yesterday I had been surprised by a sudden change in weather, but now was being charmed by constantly improving conditions.

At the tip of the headland just inside the bay there is a fine little beach with a picturesque mosque. I snapped it with my camera and carried on around the point where two more dolphins surfaced nearby as if wishing me goodspeeed. It had taken me three hours to cross the bay, not having paddled in a straight line across it. I rested briefly and had a snack.

From this point on the adventure seemed all but over. The coastline was dramatic enough: towering moun-tains rising precipitously from the sea as before, but the difference here was that there was a highway snaking its way along the base of the cliffs.

I had to camp that night, but was going to find it dif-ficult to find a private patch of beach. There was one fine beach with a fisherman’s hut and a few boats not

far from the point, but other than that all the beaches were backed by the road and villages.

I pulled in at Jiri for a half hour stop, then again at Jadi to study the map. At this last beach a group of local Emirati girls, students from Abu Dhabi’s Women’s College, came to look at the kayak and ask about my trip. They plied me with drinks and fruit and gave me a push start when I headed out into the surf.

The breakers were quite strong and, because of all the attention, I guess, I got the timing wrong and got smashed when hardly afloat. I managed to get out through the surf but found my foredeck had been swept clean, four bottles of water and my underwater camera had gone. At the same time my spray deck had collapsed and had taken in gallons of water. A most unsatisfactory departure, just when I wanted to impress.

Shortly before sunset I had got to the point where there is a military post with a rocky promontory – Ras Khatm. On the northern side of this promontory was a long beach and the village of Bukha. It was time to stop as the sun would soon be setting, but there appeared to be absolutely no privacy on the beach, so I decided to chance it and head on round the promontory. As it happened, just on the other

Khor Shams. Not on the route. Photo taken on another trip from the narrow strip of land separating Khor Shamm and Khor Ha-balayn (the west and east coast).s).

side, and just as the sun was setting, I found a small beach.

The stretch of sand between the rocks was not very large and the breakers were fierce, but I had no option but to go for it. Luckily, I had on my sponsons. I did a hanging brace on the first mon-strous wave to hit me, but found myself uninten-tionally spun 180 degrees out of it facing back out to sea.

I then positioned myself so that I would end up on the sand rather than the rocks, and took another big breaker with a high brace in. The sponsons were magnificent. For sure, without them, I would have been mangled.

The road passed within yards of where I camped, but the beach was deserted and as it was now dark I was not noticeable. A cold, strong wind blew much of the night, but I slept well enough knowing that getting out through high breakers was easier than coming in through them, and knowing that my trip was all but over. I was hardly an hour’s paddle away from Sham.

Monday: I rose early and was ready to go at about 7.30. A young Omani stopped to have a look at the kayak. He seemed quite knowledgeable and indicat-ed that they had kayaks, perhaps at some club.

He also knew about GPSs. He asked a pertinent question: ‘When did you arrive here?’ I told him ‘Yesterday evening, around sunset’. He said: ‘How did you manage that then. The sea was very big.’

I then discovered that I no longer had my distance glasses. They had been hanging around my neck when I landed the previous night. They must have been ripped away from the cord as I came in.

Going out that morning the breakers were quite man-ageable and I made sure I did it right.

By 10 in the morning I was passing Sham, and inside UAE waters. I took the precaution of paddling well away from the shore so as not to bee seen by the customs people at either Thabi in Oman or Sham.

My original arrangement with John Gregory was to land at a beach in Sham within sight of the border point. But I knew he wasn’t expecting me till the fol-lowing day and that my Nissan would still be at his factory in Galilah.

Ancient Shehhi dwelling somewhere along the way. Photo taken on another occasion.

So I paddled on an extra mile or two and finally beached in Galilah at around 11.30am.

The sea that morning was glassy smooth with only a gently undulating surface. This slight swell still cre-ated quite respectable breakers however.

I waited to let a large set pass, then, thinking I had timed it perfectly, started furiously paddling in, my sponsons inflated. Hardly had I started paddling, from nowhere, it seemed, a huge wave loomed up and started to curl.

It was the most exhilarating finish to a terrific jour-ney. Broadside, leaning heavily into the foaming wave, my kayak still weighing a ton but bobbing about furiously on the sponsons, I was swept a good fifty yards or more right up on to the beach.

As I unloaded the kayak I noticed a large rock, about eight feet in length and sticking two feet or more out of the sand. I had missed it by a matter of a couple of feet.

Once I had changed into dry clothing and repacked the kayak on some high dry ground away from the sea, I walked to the main road where there were some shops.

I phoned John’s factory. He was in Dubai, but his as-sistant said my Nissan was there and gave me direc-tions. I took a five dirham taxi ride and was there within minutes.