East coast emirate - Fujairah
Went to Fujairah for my first diving trip.
We drove from Abu Dhabi, picked up a friend in Dubai and headed to Fujairah non stop. We reached in Dibba around 10 30, so the journey took around 2.5 hours from Dubai, thanks to the good road condition around the Emirates.
Fujairah is the only emirates located in the east coat, thus has the coat in Indian ocean, not inside Gulf strait. This made Fujairah is wellknown as weekend holiday spot and diving destination in UAE.
It has several hotel along the beach, most of them organize (separated) diving center and excursion.
The beach and ocean is bright blue, as well as the sky. It was so breathtaking, just laying on the beach and looking up to the sky. Around teh area there is a row of mountain as part of Hajar Mountain which goes through to Oman.
In the road between Dubai and Fujairah, there is a small enclave which is under Oman's region and also there is another part of Oman which is separated from Main Oman called MUsandam, located at the tip of the gulf.
One of my outstanding objective (which I regret it so much why didn't I do it back in indonesia) is to try diving.
I am intouch withn diving organization called fundiver. They run diving excursion and occasionally took a beginner like me to get discover scuba trip.
We arrived in Dibba, Fujairah and started the session in the hotel pool, together with us were 2 instructors, 3 person who did refresher course and myself.
The instructor taught us to do 4 basic skills (and many more for those refreshers). I was a bit surprised to exactly wear many devices for diving, oxygen tank (which is very heavy), with the regulator and hoses, wet suit, fins, googles and snorkle, last but not least shocking - a 1 kg stone belt to put on the waist 2 for each side of the waist.
My embarrasing moment was when I went out after changing to my wet suit from the toilet,a guy smiled at me and point at my suit. I was confused and he said: sorry the zip should be on your back.. ooopppsss!!!! I just wished I could dissapear!
I was a bit worry at first to think that I might get very panicked under the water, but it turned out to be very enjoyable moment when we practice the skills in the pool. I went to a helicopter under water training and offshore survival course before and I can tell that those are much more horrible that this is. So I was actually having fun during the practices. Then we had to wait because we missed the first boat trip.
The instructor gave us bad news that due to red-tide (algae bloom) the visibility is very poor, so he let us make the decision whether or not we will proceed. I wa sthinking that this will be my first diving, I don;t actually have any expectation what to see down there, so i just decided to still go with the diving and so were the other couple.
I had to wear the whole equipment and walked to reach the boat, it was a quite tough task for me. I remember I actually asked the instructor after that, whether I am fit for diving or not:D.
The boat stop nearby a rock ~20-m from the coast. We went into teh water. one thing they forgot to tell me, that we had to jump to the water backwards~!!!!! I was a bit panicked, but again, when your nose is covered, everything else will be fine!.
Soon all of us were in the water, adjusting each of us and we start to go deeper into the red-water. After a while going around the thick algae, we finnaly came across one spot where there were a bunch of fish and cuttlesfish, we saw bunch of them, with their glittering pattern. It was so beautiful. Several sea urchins and so many types of fish which I can't recognize the names.
Indeed it was such an experience!.
We pent almost 1 hour under the water (but didn't feel even like half of it), with the maximum depth of 7-m only.
one task ticked in my list!
