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Paddling around the Musandam Peninsula

Publicerad: 2010.01.01 Uppdaterad: 2013.03.08 Av: Caroline Nilsson
Paul Rosenquist, his wife Louise and their best friend Peter Bas paddled around the Musndam Peninsula in Oman, where the Indian Ocean meets the Persian Gulf.
Louise, my wife, was still going through the aftermath of her summer expedition. She had single-handedly rowed along the entire coast of Sweden and was still busy with book ideas, presentations and her new job at a motivation company. However, the winter was approaching rapidly and that meant a month of free time, a month to do something else. We wanted an adventure, but nothing so demanding that it would take huge amounts of time to prepare or recover. We wanted warmth; we wanted to escape a Swedish winter….


Words and pictures:
Paul Rosenquist
Slowly a plan developed and the pieces started falling together. We would send our kayaks to Oman in the Middle East and than drive them to Musandam, the most northern tip of the country; the inlet of the Persian Gulf.



This area, that is unique in many ways, has always been in Oman’s possession, even though it is not directly connected with the country. You have to leave Oman and drive through Sharjaz ’one of the Emirate states’ and than re-enter Oman! Visa wise, it's quite a feat. Musandam has, in many ways, always appealed to me. When I as a small boy I went to primary school in Oman; my father worked there, extracting the black gold from the ground.

Musandam could rightly be called the Lofoten, or Norway of the Middle East; it has a dramatic coastline, where 800 metre cliffs plunge into the wild, deep blue waters of the Gulf of Oman (Indian Ocean) or the Persian Gulf.
Oman is a rugged place, the gateway to the gulf, where many wars have been fought. Smugglers and traders have travelled these routes for centuries; bringing spices, gold, and textiles to Dubai, the trading centre of the middle East; here money is not made by tapping oil from the ground, but from creating business out of nothing. Countless nationalities live side by side in Dubai, working like crazy besides huge glass towers and man made landscapes that are visible from the moon. Everything you see in Dubai, is man made. Not so in Musandam….
 
Musandam is one of those places that makes you feel small, humble.



There are only a handful of villages scattered along the coast, crammed onto little sandy beaches and all hidden in deep bays between the high walls of the mountains. These villages have their own languages and can only be accessed by fishing boats, dhows, or after a few days in a kayak! However, the latter is highly unusual; why use muscles if Allah has brought us Yamaha?

Though the locals thought us a little crazy, they respected our courage and strength and showed us immense hospitality.
Musandam has one town and one beach that is accessible by 4wd. The landscape is impossible, alien almost; the mountains aren't extremely high, (1000 metres) but they are extremely steep, razor sharp and made of an old, loose sandstone / limestone. There is no way out if things at sea become too much.

The deep blue of the Indian Ocean can be very pleasing to the eye; in calm conditions the water is gorgeous, with mirror flat conditions in the deep fjords. But throw in a stiff breeze or perhaps a little off shore storm that kicks up the sea and suddenly that easy paddle becomes a serious proposition. Paddling along those high sea walls with the swell crashing into and off them can be challenging. In calmer seas we would be gliding along, paddling over coral reefs and huge sea turtles would appear silently beside the kayaks; awe inspiring mountains, gorgeous seas, stunning reefs, amazing wildlife... sea kayak heaven...
 

The Northern coast of the Peninsula is, however, completely different from the Eastern and the Western coasts described; here lies the huge Persian Gulf.
The Persian Gulf rises and falls by two metres two times a day - a lot of water!



In the middle of the Strait of Hormuz this is not so noticeable; Yes, large ships feel the current and sometimes tankers get stuck, but not much worse than that. But around the cape of Musandam, where water is forced between islands and the mainland, this can be very scary. Life threatening. 



In calm weather, currents, outpacing speedboats, create massive whirlpools and kick up waves and chop up to two and a half metres high. Fun stuff for advanced sea kayaking, for experienced paddlers, but being out in a region at least 150kms from nearest GSM coverage, with no landing points, overloaded kayaks, and not a soul within thousands of miles who knows you or that you are out there, makes you more careful and a little less enthusiastic.


So the plan was set and when I mentioned it to my old buddy PB from Holland he couldn't resist. What PB lacks in paddling experience he makes up for in character; whatever he does, he does it with spirit and a bottle of champagne!
So off we went, PB, Louise and I.

The kayaks, together with all the gear that we could stuff into them, were forwarded by Point65 to Muscat, Oman. I made sure that the kayaks could be sold in Dubai after the expedition. This did not seem to be a problem. We managed to get hold of a good rental deal for a Land Cruiser, with Al Maha car rental in Oman, which was perfect all we needed! This modern Camel would be the platform we needed to carry all our gear and the kayaks through the Northern Hajar mountains from Muscat to the Musandam area. The drive is absolutely stunning; narrow wadi’s (dry river beds) with high mountain walls, where you have to navigate huge boulders on rough tracks that are washed away after each rain fall. Than after the wadi’s its up into the mountains, up to 2000 metres where the winter temperature are quite cool. The journey is stunning vista after stunning vista with endless mountain ridges and the ever winding track ahead.
The drive, including the four border posts, takes a whole day. We planned to launch from a small beach in the fjord called Kawhr al Najd. This is the only beach accessible by 4wd and is in an absolutely fantastic launch spot. To get there you have to get your car to crawl over a steep mountain pass.
 
The 600 metre descent is an endless serpentine which, finally, dumps you on a pebble beach. The waypoint that Google Earth supplied us with worked flawlessly and the GPS indicated the critical turnoffs. We were not alone on the beach. It was Eid, meaning all the local people were celebrating the end of Ramadan, so to the sound of arabic music and drums we set camp for the first time on a Musandam beach. The paddle route that lay ahead of us felt like a major challenge; PB was pretty tense and I was feeling the pressure. Our plan was to circumnavigate the peninsula and return to the same beach; either making a portag over a narrow stretch of land or paddling in to Khasab, the main town, and finding someone to drive us back to our car.



When the drums and the speakers of the Omani party goers / campers were eventually put to rest, a stiff wind with fierce gusts kicked up and actually managed to press our North Face tent all the way down to our noses. Already, I was thinking of postponing our departure or re-routing part of the route. We eventually slept, waking early the next morning, but when we crawled out of our tents the sea was like a mirror, the sky was deep blue, and our Omani friends were scrambling along the mountain side to gather the bits and pieces of their tents. I drove our jeep down the pebble beach to the water line and there we piled up everything we wanted in the kayaks. We calculated for six days. Four litres of water per day per head…a lot of water, then the camping gear and all the food. Luckily not a lot of clothing was needed. After two hours of fitting, packing and re-packing the heap was gone and three rock solid, stuffed to the rafters, Point65 Crunch kayaks were sitting on the beach ready to go. I was happy that the boats still floated. Soon we took our first paddle strokes; paddle strokes towards an unknown adventure.

The mood on the paddle out of the fjord was tense. Both excited about the stunning surroundings, the perfect weather and the lovely feeling of slicing through the deep blue ocean, but we also felt the pressure of the unknown hanging over us. The combination of being totally dependent on yourself and not having any way out, is special. We aimed to paddle about 30km’s a day, which would, hopefully, leave a little room for unforeseen problems and also some extra exploring should the need arise. Through a friend that lives in Dubai and who is very active in exploring the region we got hold of a military survey map that really was a great help. No information on tides and currents, but at least a good idea of how the coast and the mountains looked. Beaches were not noted on the map, but the more we paddled in the area, the more the map became predictable and we could plan ahead, more or less on finding a beach in certain types of bays. We had the swell and the wind from behind and we glided nicely out of the deep fjord into a bigger fjord that led out to the open sea. PB seemed pretty comfortable and the hours ticked by while we got used to the surroundings. More sunblock here, more vaseline there…

We rounded our first cape in calm conditions. The best thing about rounding a cape, is the whole new world that opens up; different coloured mountains, different sea conditions and a new bay to explore. We paddled our way into a narrow bay which opened into a small pool and a narrow pebble beach. This would be our first camp site and the place we would celebrate New Year.
Huge piles of drift wood quickly made a whiteman style campfire. Sitting around a bush tv, in such remote places, which are so silent that they become noisy is an experience not to be missed. ’Ssshh!. What was that?’ ’I heard something’ So many strange sounds. The hightide filling voids in the reef, a goat scrambling along a ridge somewhere high up, fish jumping, a turtle coming up for air; and all the monstrous creatures your mind throws in to the mix The night was spent listening to the high tide; too sleepy to go out of the comfort of your tent to check it out and too worried to fall asleep; was that the sound of a kayak softly floating away?
The next day we crossed a huge bay and rounded a very distinct cape. PB suffered a little during this trip; the chop was kicking up from all sides. I was paddling very close to him to tell him when to brace and when to paddle. Slowly he got the hang of it, but he was at the top of his concentration and I could see his kayak trembling from the tension. Waves were flushing over our boats and sometimes kicked up into our faces. I knew it was only a matter of time...

By the fifth capsize of the five km journey around the cape our rescues were pretty smooth! Emptying a boat on your deck while it’s fully loaded with drinking water can be a pretty draining event, but with PB pushing down the stern it went reasonably easily. The day ended with a beautiful three hour crossing of a bay with nearly calm conditions. In the middle of the bay we came across a small island with some nice reefs surrounding it and a tiny stretch of white coral sand that appeared enough for our camp. During the sunset we scrambled up the local mountain and enjoyed the most amazing views. Sea in all directions, the sky burning, our camp lying beneath and in the distance some great new capes looming.
What a place!

Our third day would take us around the most northern cape. On the map it looked challenging, but things were going smoothly and I was pretty sure that we would get through OK. We were aiming to paddle through a channel, between an island and the mainland. When we arrived at the channel after a three hour morning paddle, PB asked me if we were making any progress. ’YEAH we're doing great, keep paddling!’ An hour later we were, basically, a few hundred metres sideways. The chop was rapidly kicking up and I decided to bail out, cross the channel and stick to the northern shore; some odd looking currents were popping up; the kayaks would be in mirror flat water, then all of a sudden you would spin 180°. We all made it to the shore of the island and huddled in an eddy along a 300 metre high wall. We were 10 metres away from the edge where the channel would open up again, but water was rushing by at ridiculous speeds, surf waves were being kicked up by the current; the 700 metre wide channel an ideal playspot for surfers. Being so isolated and with such heavy boats and worried about getting everybody through safely, playing was the last thing on my mind.

Just for the hell of it I tried to beat the current and see if I could get through the channel. We were so close! I glided out of our sheltered eddy and worked as hard as I could. I was moving backwards and quickly got into the big stuff where my boat was surfing without actually getting anywhere. Enjoyable, but, considering where we were, a little scary. After a bumpy ride I got back to the others and we had to make a decision. Either wait for the tide to change (a few hours) or try to go around the island and hope that it would be better on the other, more open side. We waited for 20 minutes and things just got worse. Minutes later we started the ninety minute paddle to the other side of the island. This proved a stupid decision….

We rounded the southern cape of the island relatively easily and PB was doing great, so I felt OK about it. In the distance I could see white rollers thundering across and even a few hundred metres out at sea to our right, things looked really nasty, but we were in an OK spot. Just at the cape we needed to round, it looked like we might just get away with it.
We had a small beach a few hundred metres to our left, so I felt like we had a way out, should one be needed. Suddenly the water got worse and without noticing it we were moving away from shore. Right into the big white rollers. PB capsized, Louise and I were fine, but it was really full on. I got PB back in his saddle and quickly assessed that we were moving towards the cape which was good, but away from land, which was bad. The water got crazy and soon PB capsized again. I got him back in and I ordered a hard paddle, straight to shore. This was a really bad spot, with PB continuously bracing for waves that by now, were coming from all directions...
 
Whirlpools were spinning us around and it felt bad. I was planning to tow PB to shore, this felt like our best option, but I was far from 100% sure it would work. We were still moving out to sea. I never found out if it would have worked because suddenly I noticed a fast moving object from the corner of my eye. A small, grey painted speedboat flying over the waves. They spotted me and turned. I thought it was a navy boat, but the two fellows aboard were not dressed in uniform. With my little Arabic and the look of things they soon understood that some assistance was needed. First they offered to tow or bring us to the little beach, but I felt we needed to get around the cape, I quickly scanned the map and noticed a small town called Khumzar not too far from where we were. I said Khumzar! The guys exchanged looks and decided not to waste more time. The waves were crashing into their boat as well. They had probably missed their timing as well and obviously were stressed about being there. I quickly crawled into their boat and pulled my kayak across. The boat was hardly bigger than my kayak, but it could stick out.

We quickly got in the other two kayaks and as soon as the guy behind the throttle figured we were all aboard he hammered it. It was the wildest ride I have ever been on. He was navigating each wave firing up the 225hp Yamaha up the wave and then gently steering around the rollers; luckily for us he was no rookie. The guys did not want to drop as at Khumzar…I understood why. They were smugglers from Iran. They had run the 45km crossing from Oman to Iran with cigarettes, tea and assorted luxury items. The Iranian navy opens fire on these guys, but in Oman they are more or less accepted. I spotted a small beach and said, ’there will be OK!’ and before we knew it, the boat was flying towards the beach. They literally chucked us overboard, threw off the kayaks and before I could turn around to offer them a reward, they were already doing 50 knots, still waving backwards but looking forwards. These guys were amazing and just popped up out of nowhere. They pretty much saved us. We gathered ourselves, checked the kayaks, and prepared to continue our way to Khumzar.

The sun was setting as we paddled into the bay of Khumzar. Our near disaster, the mellow evening light and the mosque, right on the beach made this a special moment for us all. When we were a few hundred metres from the beach the mosque sprang to life and the call to prayer echoed through mountains. On the beach were a dozen or so children who greeted us by using us as target practise – for rockthrowing. We kept out of range and Louise quickly slipped on a more covering shirt. After a short while some adults noticed us and quickly got the kids to stop. We landed on the beach and a crowd of perhaps 100 men, mostly fishermen, and boys surrounded us. They were amazed at our appearance and their english and my Arabic made for some hilarious conversations. I pointed out on the map where we had come from and they laughed loudly when I pointed out that we had some problems out at the cape by the island. Only go there between five and nine in the mornings they shouted, laughing their lungs out and pointing it out to their friends. Our map was an amusing thing for them; they had probably never seen one. After a while a guy called Abdullah stepped through the masses and offered us a place to stay stow the boats. It appeared to be the ’gentleman’s tv and card playing room’. About 30 of the villagers carried our boats into the room and we were offered the chance to sleep and stay there. This was great! After a while the guys understood that we wanted to sleep and, so that they could watch tv together, they offered us one of their houses instead!
 
We went on a guided tour of the entire village with Abdullah, the son of the late chief of Khumzar, and some of his cousins and friends. Their pride in their town and of being Khumzaries was clear. They even had their own language, a mix of nine different languages, the Khumzaries have basically taken words from each of countries that have tried to occupy the strategically important position of Musandam. With a glint in their eyes, they pointed out the graves of the French, Portuguese, English and Indians... they had buried over the years. ’We always won’ they said smiling.

At six the next morning, the call to prayer reverberating through the mountains and over the water once again, we paddled into the pitch black. The following days we enjoyed tailwinds and a moderate swell, sometimes surf, always from behind. We were making great time and soon came to an extremely sheltered fjord called Kahw al Shams, meaning the big fjord. Here we enjoyed the company of a group of dolphins, and could hand pick the most exotic beach we could find.
 

I arrived in Khasab with mixed feelings. A major relief that we had made it back, safe, and that all had gone so well. The trip was even more breathtakingly beautiful we had dared to imagine. At the same time I felt a little sad that it was over. The intense lifestyle you adapt to on these kind of trips gets to you; it absorbs you, your persona changes, alters, tuned to the environment. And then suddenly it’s over and you can basically can do what ever you want without any serious consequences and you feel empty.

After a two day drive through the mountains we finally arrived in Dubai; as great a contrast to an extraordinary place called Musandam as you could possibly imagine.
 
FACT SHEET

The country: 
The Sultanate of Oman is an extremely pleasant islamic country to travel in. Very open to visitors and still keen to keep its traditions. The three million inhabitants are mostly concentrated in the Muscat area. Musandam is an isolated part of the country that is strategically positioned at the inlet of the Strait of Hormuz.



Visa:
 Most holders of western passports can buy a visa at the airport. In order to Get to Musandam from Muscat one leaves Oman, enters the United Emirates and enters Oman again. All necessary visas can be purchased at the borders. Note, if travelling by rental car, special insurance papers must be presented.



Kayaking: 
There are hardly any kayaks available locally, so bringing your own is the only way. They can be sold locally afterwards. The coastline of Oman is mostly a sandy beaches with the odd exceptions, where at certain points, the mountains come close to the shore. In the Muscat area there are many interesting sites to day trip around. Barr al Jissah, The Mutrah harbour, or to and from Fahal Island are some examples. The Paddling in Musandam is exposed and potentially dangerous. Water and food is not available and the weather and tide must be taken into account.



Access: 
Musandam can be accessed by car from either Muscat or Dubai. Dubai is closer. There are many direct flights going directly to Dubai. Fewer to Oman.
Five star hotels are abundant. Cheap hotels are present in the older parts of Dubai. These hotels are mostly used by Indian workers. ’A Rough Guide to the Middle East’ will definitely give more information on this.
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