Romantic Beach Walk?

You might think hubby and I are on vacation--taking a romantic walk along the beach. However, as the case is, we live in Oman, in a desert country, and I thought getting up early on a Saturday morning to watch the sun rise over the beach would be a "fun" and "romantic date. I'll let you make your own conclusion....

First, getting ready for the outing:

1. Up at 4:30 a.m.--check
2. Jug of water to wash feet after the walk--check
3. Packing a small bag of necessities--check
4. Chacos (super walking sandals!)--check
5. Camera--check
6. Humidity--don't want that, but check, check
7. Did I say it was humid? check, check, check!

In fact, as we drove to the beach in the near dawn, we began to see clouds and haze over the water. First sign that we might be in trouble. It was so humid--did I already say that?--that we couldn't even see the mountains behind us. Usually the mountains are blocked by a haze of sand, but the humidity was literally so thick you could cut it with a knife!

In fact, the humidity was so bad that the camera lens fogged over and never "un-fogged" for the entire beach walk! Here's a sample of the fogged lens. Good thing Don had his phone camera!

Not to be deterred, however, we trudged ahead, hoping for the best. First sighting of the morning: fisherman already returning from their day's work, rushing to get their fish to market.

Nets are piled in the boat as they get ready to head back to sea and wherever they store their boats.
The littering of fish on the beach are the ones that were caught but not wanted.
The left a trail all the way back to where the jeep was waiting to
haul the day's catch to the local fish market.

It might be a little hard to see, but the jeep in the background is hauling off the fish catch for the day.

As we continued on down the beach, we saw this guy making his way quickly back home. He was one of the bigger ones we saw on the beach.

A car has run over his mound!

The Omani way of disguising utility structures on the beach.

Since it is summer, Don and I didn't expect many people out on the beach so early in the morning. We were wrong, however, and encountered lots of people on the beach. We caught this rare shot of a young Omani family swimming and enjoying the early morning "cool" of the day (using the term cool is relative!). She is swimming in the ocean in her abiyah and shayla, which is common custom for them.

Her identity is protected--it was not my wish to expose her, just to show what is common custom.

Finally, after almost an hour, the sun finally began to break through the clouds. 

Since we were already drenched--did I say it was humid?--we took the rising sun as a sign to get out of the sun before the extreme heat hit! Back at the car, we washed our feet and thought we'd drive to our favorite Starbucks for breakfast. It is supposed to open at 7 a.m., but we were there a little early, so we entertained ourselves by taking pictures of activity on the beach across the street.

You'll remember this Starbucks from an earlier post--"Does the
view from your Starbucks look like this?

Imagine our surprise and delight when these 5 horsemen galloped out onto the beach!
I just kept thinking about Arabian nights!

Both of these guys are fishing by hand with a line 

Always wondered what goes under a kilt? Well, here's what goes under a dishdash.
It was very warm, and the sand was very wet--so all the men were
protecting the white cloth of their dishdash.

Well, the Starbucks didn't even have any employees in it to be getting ready a little after 7, so we got back in the car and headed back to where we took our original beach walk--the Al Shatti area. Costa was open for business, and we finally enjoyed the cooler sea breeze, the shade of trees, a good cup of coffee with pastries, the lap of the ocean waves, and holding the hand of my sweetie. Romantic? At last!