Scuba Diving in Oman

We went with a group from the scuba club to Oman for a long weekend of diving. The diving in Oman is much better than the diving in Qatar. I think this is because it is on the edge of the Indian Ocean--rather than in the Gulf. We stayed at a beach resort about an hour north of Muscat (the capital.) We did 4 boat dives in 2 days at a string of small islands about 45 minutes from the shore. They have beautiful hard and soft coral. You can see some damage from the recent cyclone (IE broken coral, branches and rocks moved) but marine life seems to be recovering quickly.

I always have a sense of awe while diving and that is not just from being able to breathe 60 feet under water (which is very cool.) It is seeing that there is a whole world that exists beneath the surface. It made me want to watch "Finding Nemo" and "Little Mermaid" again. On a more serious note--it also made me want to sing "For the Beauty of the Earth" out loud (not as easy to do through a regulator as you might think.) If church and temples didn't exist--I can't think of a better place to get to know God than at the bottom of the ocean or at the top of a mountain. There were so many beautiful and wonderful creatures down there and I just kept looking at them thinking: “Wow. You and I have the same creator.” Amazing.

Here is a list of some of the things we saw (thanks to some of the other divers that helped me complete the list): Sting rays, electric rays, sea snakes, honeycomb eels, white eels, blue trigger fish, red tooth trigger fish, turtles, cornet fish, Arabian Picasso fish, bi-color parrot fish, porcupine fish, Arabian angel fish, emperor angel fish, lionfish, banner fish, many species of butterfly fish, clown fish (Nemo), rock fish/grouper fish, devil scorpion fish, cuttle fish, shrimp and sea urchins. As I mentioned before, there are also many kinds of coral and plant life including goblet sponges and table coral. I also collected a few (uninhabited) shells: limpets, cowries, textile cone shells, and auger shells. (Mom would be so proud of my "finds".)

As we were loading up the boat, a guy from the resort was washing the horses in the ocean. He gave us a quick circus performance.

On the way to the islands on our second day of diving, we passed by a huge “herd” of small spinner dolphins. There must have been more than 100 of them. We circled the boat a few times so that we could watch them pass by. They would jump in groups of 10-20 and would do occasional spins in the air. It was amazing and hardly seemed real. They were too fast for me to get a good picture, but I did get 1 or 2 ok short videos. The group is putting together a CV of everyone’s pictures, so I am hoping someone else got a good one.

We had some free time one evening, so we rented a water bike and drove around the beach. It was a lot of fun--and VERY slow moving.

On the water bike.

The flash caught us right up front, but this was the only photo I have of the group at dinner.

...If I get some of the underwater pictures from the group, I will add those later.