Musandam Blues # 6/2012

I am not making many postings at the moment (good reasons, so nothing to worry about) but nevertheless I have, during this "quiet time", picked up yet another watcher. Amazing!).


Here, again is a photo from Oman, not Richmond. Sorry.  It's not tweaked. (Well only a tiny bit).  This is more or less exactly as I saw it and how the camera captured it. Wonderful.


Musandam is the rocky, mountainous, area at the very northern tip of Oman which, though tiny, resembles "Norway in the sunshine", by virtue of the deep sea fiords that cut into the steeply rising mountains. Musandam forms one side of the Straights of Hormuz and Iran is only 30 miles (a 45 minute trip in a smuggler's speed boat) away across the water.


The straights are the main waterway for the giant tankers exiting from the Gulf oil fields and are the prowling ground for powerful warships of opposing navies of nervous antagonistic world powers.


For tourists, Musandam is a place to see the remnants of very ancient lost civilisations where early man lived his primitive life in a totally different and somewhat damp climate!  Today it is a dry desert. It is also a place to see Dolphins, dive to see wonderful fish, and to meet pleasant, amusing Omanis, full of fun and courtesy: a place where the men rub noses when they meet. For Westerners this is an hilarious thing to see!!


This photo catches the dawn as it rises out of the East and climbs above the rocky peaks of the Musandam mountains that are so typical of Oman.