We had a stop in Khasab, Oman on our way from Mumbai to Dubai. I can’t say I ever thought I’d be in Oman, so I had no clue what to expect. What I can say is that it looked like a scene from Lawrence of Arabia, with a town filled with sand sculptures. From our ship we could see the town in the distance, with a couple mosques dotting the skyline. The tan on tan on tan view almost looked surreal.

Our excursion for the day was on a dhow, a characteristically Middle-Eastern vessel with triangular sails, teak or coconut wood masts and hulls made of an extremely durable wood such as mahogany. Dhow boat tours are a very popular thing to do in Khasab.

The boat had a fairly open deck with a raised edge all the way around. One side sat higher than the other so the deck sloped down toward the low side. It also sloped up at both the bow and stern ends. The deck had Persian carpets covering most of it, and cushions all around the edges for people to sit on.

We sailed through the fjords of the Musandam Peninsula, which is where the town of Khasab is located. Our cruise was for approximately 3½ hours into photogenic Khawr Shamm, Oman’s longest fjord. The peninsula is known as the Norway of Arabia because of the beauty of the fjords with the landscape of sheer cliffs rising from the deep waters.

At one point we stopped to allow people to swim for a little while. Ryan and I didn’t get in the water and instead just enjoyed our time on the boat. The center console near the engine pipe had a platter of fruit for us. The crew also handed out water at the beginning to anyone who wanted it and soda after snorkeling.

We saw many dolphins swimming in the water. The water wasn’t necessarily clear – and in fact looked as black as oil at one point and then turned a sort of blackish-green. The dolphins were mostly visible when they would surface and bring their bodies momentarily out of the water as if to say ‘hi’ to us.

We passed a few quaint fishing villages only accessible by boat. They were so remote and only housed ~20-25 people. It was hard for either of us to imagine living in a place so desolate. You have to look closely at the picture, because the little village almost disappears into the landscape.

At one point we arrived at Telegraph Island, so named because it served as a base for a British crew that laid an underwater communications cable from India to Iraq in the mid-1860s. Our tour guide showed us photos of the island from during the war that his father had taken.

The cruise through the fjords was quite relaxing and the photos don’t do it justice. The breeze was lovely and the dolphins were lively. Overall, it was an enjoyable excursion.

After we finished with the dhow cruise, we headed back to the ship to try to get some work done. Others from the ship went into town and said it was a letdown, almost seeming like a ghost town with nothing going on and nowhere to go. I was relieved that I hadn’t missed out by choosing to get some work done, and think we made the most of our time with the dhow cruise.