Arabian Cruise

For our mid-semester break in February we chose a trip that was relaxing, but with a bit of variety and education, and lots of family time. We took a cruise from Dubai that stopped in five ports on the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman. We traveled aboard the Costa Classica Cruise Line. You remember the Italian cruise ship that sank in the Mediterranean last January 2012?  Yes! That was Costa Cruise Line. Needless to say, our cruise was very reasonably priced......

Before our ship left the port of Dubai we had a safety drill. No kidding! It was a marvelous hour of seeing 1000 people dressed in life vests, going quickly to muster stations where we were given safety demonstrations in seven (7) different languages. Next time you complain about the French-English demo on a plane, think about watching it seven times!

Our first stop was the city of Muscat in the country of Oman. From the ship we were awed by our first sight of Muscat with its mountains! We don't have mountains in Qatar and did not expect to see them in the desert. The Al Hajar mountains rise from the sea amid the desert sands.  Muscat has small reserves of oil and natural gas but does not have the wealth of Qatar.

We went ashore and spent the morning exploring the Souq. Lisa made some fun purchases and had a great time laughing with the vendors. The most notable character was "George from India" who sold wonderful cotton tops.

One of our shore excursions was to jump on a dhow and travel into the fjords and the "Norway of the Middle East". This was a fun day on a smaller boat, swimming in the Gulf near Telegraph Island, watching dolphins. Telegraph Island was a small relay station for telegraphic messages from Pakistan to London, England. It was an unpopular post because of the heat in the summer. The post was abandoned in 1870 but the cabin and part of the tower still remain. The tour guide told us that the term "going round the bend" was started here: British officers hated the posting so much that they wished to "go round the bend" of the Strait of Hormuz and back to India.

Another port of call was Abu Dhabi. We spent a day sightseeing and were surprised that it is a city with a very different feel than Doha or Dubai. The Sheikh Zayed Mosque is absolutely beautiful and we were thrilled to have a tour inside. It has magnificent chandeliers (gilded with 24 carat gold) and the largest hand-knotted carpet in the world.

Our time on the ship was very relaxing and full of the usual cruise activities: swimming, sun bathing, spa treatments, and eating of course!

We passed twice through the Strait of Hormuz. This is a strategically important geographical feature. It is the narrowest point between Iran and the UAE. All oil from the Gulf countries (UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, Saudi) must travel out of the ("Persian") Gulf through the strait in order to be made available to the rest of the world. Because it is only 41 km across it has been called a "choke point" and there seems to always be fear that Iran will close it off and put the world in a difficult position of not having access to the world's oil supplies. This was an important geography lesson for all of us and the whole boat seemed to get quiet as we passed so close to Iran.