My Christmas day here in Dibba was so different from any Christmas I've ever had. For twenty six years straight, I have spent Christmas in Nashville, Tennessee with my mom, my dad and mom's side of the family. My two cousins have literally never had a single Christmas without me, and I have never spent Christmas away from my family.

Initially I thought that Christmas would feel like any other day here- it was warm and sunny just like it is 99% of the time in Dibba- definitely not the Christmas weather I'm accustomed to. We live in a Muslim country- so Christmas is just business as usual for all of our neighbors and many of our clients. There were no Christmas lights on houses or music playing in stores.

Our local grocery store Lulu did sell Christmas decorations- much to our amazement. I tried to take a photo with my iphone to show you guys- but the security guard wouldn't let me. Lulu had fake trees and ornaments and bows and garlands and everything! We bought a few stars and garlands to hang up around our house. Jen bought adorable cards for everyone and presented them to us on Christmas eve- which definitely helped get everyone into the mood.

Christmas morning I got up at 3:30am to skype with my family back home who were 9 hours behind me. As I walked through the dark of the living room to the front door, I found a package in my path. It was a large tin, full of chocolates. There was a note on it-
For the yellow house, stay good, Love Santa
I have to say, it was really awesome to get a present from Santa all the way over here on Christmas morning! Then I was off to the office to get on skype.
My family was about to sit down to Christmas eve dinner, but they made time to gather around the glow of the computer screen to talk to me. It was so nice to see everyone and chat for a little while. I felt like I wasn't missing out entirely on Christmas.

When I came back home, I had to get some sleep, for I had to be at work at 8am- Tony and I had a  paddling and climbing trip with private clients to lead. When we woke up, Tony pulled out a present for me- a big bag of mixed chocolates- included chocolate covered Cocoa Puffs (where were those when I was 5?) We had assumed our clients would be Muslim- who else would schedule a trip on Christmas day? But much to our surprise (and delight) our clients were American! They were here on vacation. Two of the women were from Texas and one was from New Jersey. I have to say we really enjoyed hearing their southern accents- they brought a little feeling of home to Dibba. We took them climbing in the wadi in the morning, then we went paddling in the afternoon.

Trying to get into the Christmas spirit, Tony and I wore our Santa hats on our kayaking trip- of course they looked ridiculously out of place in warm waters of the Omani gulf.

Me paddling in my Santa hat

Tony in his Santa Hat

Tony- the sea kayaking Santa!

When we landed on the beach, some of our friends were there to greet us. Matty bounded through the water toward me, gave me a big hug to say Merry Christmas. Meg and David were taking amazingly ridiculous photos on the beach and wishing us well. We pulled our boats out of harms way, said farewell to our clients, and headed to Christmas dinner which all of our coworkers had been slaving away all day to prepare.

Meg and me, excited for Christmas dinner

Everyone gathered at the "brown house" for dinner. Our coworkers roasted two giant turkeys, and made all the fixings you find at a traditional British Christmas dinner. All 17+ish of us sat down to a huge table to feast, complete with lit candles and a small speaker playing Christmas songs. Sitting around the table, surrounded by friends in a warm, comfy home- it definitely felt like Christmas. It was really nice to find comfort and fellowship with our friends and coworkers so far from home, and so far from our families.

Our massive table

Before we ate, we had to have a toast, and pull our "poppers," small, tubular things in wrapper paper that you pull apart with a friend. If you win, you get what's inside- a prize, a hat, a joke and a proverb. We all got paper crowns in various colors. Tony got a maze game, I got the world's smalled sewing kit, and Callum (across the table from me) got a tiny water gun, which he promptly used to squirt Luke with.

Tony and me

Callum squirting Luke with his new water gun We had roasted parsnips & carrots, cranberry sauce, turkey & dressing, brown gravy, bread sauce, sausages wrapped in bacon, rolls, Yorkshire pudding and mashed potatoes.  My plate, the first serving

Aaron is excited!

Poor Nick! We ran out of plates!

After dinner Santa Matt handed our our Secret Santa presents. I got a really nice box of chocolates, and Tony got a travel mug.

Dessert included mince meat pies and Griz's chocolate log. Griz's chocolate cake log was probably the most amazing desert ever- sorry Mom, Dad, Deborah, Nanny and Lou! I could have eaten the entire thing.

Griz's amazing Chocolate Cake Log

So, what are these weird dishes we were served? Here goes:
Bread Sauce: a creamy, semi-lumpy sauce made with milk, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and shredded bread, you're supposed to put it on turkey- shocking, I know
Yorkshire Pudding: Imagine the moist versions of cornbread- but without cornmeal- made with smooth wheat flour
Mince Meat Pies: small pies filled with chopped, spiced fruit and sprinkled with powdered sugar
Roasted Parsnips + Carrots: Slice carrots, parsnips and onions in large pieces, drizzle with honey, sprinkle with sugar, salt and pepper and bake. MMMMmmm so good!

After desert we all sat down to play Wii together, with Matty's multiple remote control cars zooming around at our feet, and Dee's new remote control helicopter zooming around our heads, the Christmas music still blaring in the background. I kicked butt at Mario Kart racing, by the way. When the residents of the brown house started saying goodnight, we moved the party to the yellow house- for cheese and wine.

On the front porch of the yellow house, enjoying our selections

Last night we had powerful winds here in Dibba, which made the sea extremely rough. Late in the night and this morning, the waves were around two meters- a rare wave height here. We spent the morning daydreaming of surfboards. Jen and Matt took advantage of the waves and took out the company body boards and went out at lunch. By afternoon, the surf had calmed down a bit - was between two and five feet. We decided it was a good afternoon to do some rough water kayak training. Griz, Meg, David,  and Nick came out to do some training, and Matt and Matty came out to have fun. I prepped Griz, Meg, David and Nick for their launch- describing what they would encounter paddling into such large waves, and how to paddle through them. Griz and I were side by side blasting through the waves. Each wave we encountered threatened to flip us over, and pushed us towards the shore. It really takes perseverance and power to muscle through big breaking waves. At one point we faced a monster wave, our only option was to dig in and shove ourselves into it. We blasted over the crest and caught huge air on the backside.

Nick! Your kayak is getting away!

Nick sprinting to get back to his kayak

Matt headed for ta wipeout

Grizz catching an epic wave

 The thrill of catching a wave is worth the bumps and bruises from the wipeout. Our training session turned into a massive surfing session- we paddled out over and over to catch more waves. We all cheered when someone caught a massive wave and wiped out. We even drew a crowd- a bunch of locals and western expats were camping on the beach, and came to watch us surf. I even managed to catch a wave backwards in the little surf boat, and rode it backwards all the way to the sand.

Success!

The fish market- on a not-so-busy day

Wander into the mina (port or harbor) in Dibba any afternoon except Friday and your nose will find the fish market for you. The buzz of activity is hidden from the road by big refrigerated trucks waiting to be filled with fish. Weaving through and often squeezing between the trucks you'll come upon an open area with orange tarps laid out to protect freshly caught fish from pavement. There is never enough tarp space, so many fisherman display their catch on their boats.  There are no size limits, catch limits or restricted species here- so you'll see a huge variety of marine life at the fish market. Large sharks are pretty common- along with parrot fish, cuttlefish, squid, black tuna, grouper, red snapper, swordfish and a bunch of others that I don't recognize.

An enormous hammerhead shark. We guessed it was 14 feet long. The shark next to it was a decent size shark at around 8 feet

It's easy to be intimidated here, especially for Westerners. Everyone is shouting in Arabic, people are walking quickly from seller to seller, fish are being packed into baskets layered with ice and heaved into trucks. There is constant movement and constant noise. Browsing the catch on the tarp means gingerly stepping between carcasses on slippery, blood and water covered tarps. Push your way through crowds to get a look at the catch on the boats. If you can't identify fish species, and more importantly don't know which ones are tasty, don't go without someone who does. The locals don't know the western fish names. It is typically warm and sunny at the fish market- the smell of sweat mingles in the air with the fish smell- and there's fish grime and guts all over the ground. Stray cats hang around trying to steal small fish when no one is looking.  Don't wear nice shoes and expect to leave feeling grimy.

Kent and the snapper

The first time we went, I was determined to buy a fish- we were planning a cookout that night. I found a nice big red snapper I wanted. I just stood there pointing downward and asking every man that passed "how much." Eventually my stubbornness paid off because someone who spoke a little English appeared to bargain with me. He was asking 250 dirhams- around $75- way, way out of our budget. Haggling is customary and expected here. A decent price is usually half of the amount they start at. I wanted to pay 140 dirhams- around $38 for the fish, but I couldn't get him below 180.  My companions and I gave up and walked away. We were checking out some black tuna on one of the boats when someone tapped Kent on the shoulder.
     "It's okay 140," the man says, wobbling his head to the side and waving his hand with a single flick of his wrist.  We headed back over to the snapper.
  After collecting our fish we head to this building where we can pay $3 to have our fish cleaned. The building feels vastly empty, clean and quiet compared to the fish market.

The guys who clean the fish don't speak English, so I motion as if I am holding a knife and cutting a fillet off the fish and the guy gets the idea.

A smaller snapper -photo credit Jessa Hobson

He scrapes the scales off with a short board with nails sticking out of it before pulling the guts out. Tony and Kent left me to supervise the cleaning process while they went back to buy a tuna. The fish cleaner slid his knife into the fish flesh by the gills to slice the fillet off. The fillet was nearly three inches thick and at least a foot long. I tried desperately to call Tony to tell him not to buy a tuna. Oman mobile cell phone signal isn't the most reliable. Not knowing if he could hear me or not, I tried to tell them that the snapper fillets were huge and not to buy a tuna. Much to my amazement Tony and Kent returned without a tuna. Apparently the only word Tony could make out was "huge" so they assumed I was trying to tell them that the fillets were enough to feed everyone.
This first successful trip to the fish market let to many more. We learned to walk away from a fish we really wanted only to be tapped on the shoulder as we stood browsing by the competitor's boat. We also learned just how much we could get away with paying for these fish. I got the snapper pictured below for 50 dirhams - just over $10. We originally agreed on 40 dirhams but when I pulled out a 50 and expecting to get change, the price jumped to 50 dirhams. Next time we'll bring exact change.

Curtis and Kent's Perfectly Easy Red Snapper

&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbspMany of our clients who come from Dubai wonder what we do for fun here in the small town of Dibba. From the outside I'm sure Dibba seems pretty boring. We don't have much- two gas stations, two small convenience stores and one restaurant; plus lots of goats and fisherman. What Dibba lacks in exciting entertainment, it makes up for with a plethora of outdoor beauty. Plus I live with my coworkers- it would be pretty depressing if a bunch of outdoor guides couldn't have a good time in a beautiful place. As my good friend Elise used to say- "I do have a degree in FUN you know..." Oh and our boss gives us access to all the company equipment on our days off. We definitely make the most of it.

Last week, we spent one day hanging out at the beach. Stephen brought his skim board for us to test out.

None of us were good at skim boarding except Stephen who is basically a pro.

The five of us

&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbspToday, we met up with a big group of climbers from Dubai in Wadi Khab A'Shamsi and spent a few hours climbing up some new routes and making new friends.

Tony up on a route.

Recently we had the Victoria International School stay at the Absolute Adventure date plantation camp. We took them rock climbing, abseiling (rappelling), trekking and taught survival skills. I taught orienteering and trekking during their stay. We have a trek we usually take the kids on- the path takes you up a small mountain next to the beach and then down the backside to come down on the beach in the middle of an old fishing village. That trek is pretty interesting and scenic- but this week it was problematic due to some Irani refugees. The Omani army and the local police turned out to scour the mountains for them. Not wanting to get in their way, we had to alter our route. Ram decided to take the kids up a much taller mountain that sits adjacent to our camp. It's a much tougher climb with much more dramatic views at the top. The pinnacle features a knife-edge like rocky ridge which feels really exposed and has panoramic views.


The kids on the way up

Looking out over Dibba Oman and Dibba Fujeirah

Taking a break near the pinnacle

Walking along an edge

Heading down

The kids and me, hanging out under an overhang on a ledge at the end of our trek

Yesterday Eddie, Ania and I decided to paddle to Smuggler's Bay, a rather large secluded beach about 3 miles up the coast from our house. It typically only takes a little over an hour to get there even in the short sit on top kayaks we have. Unfortunately the sea had other plans for us. It took forever just to paddle to the point (a rocky bit of land we use as a reference point) because the sea was pretty big and the swell unorganized. Before the point, the swell was maybe 2 to 3 feet, but grew to 3 to 4 feet once we reached the point. We would have had an easier time had we had rolling swell, but each wave was covered in its own chop and the kayaks couldn't smoothly float over the swell but were banged around in different directions each time.
Typically, the winds and wave heights grow higher here in the afternoon. Ania fell off a boulder problem a month or two ago in India and injured one of her ribs, which started to ache as we paddled. We decided it would take another 30 to 45 minutes to reach Smuggler's Bay, and then we would have to immediately return knowing that we had rougher seas and a longer paddle to get back. Eddie would probably have to tow Ania back because of her rib. We decided the trip wasn't worth the risk or misery and turned around at the point. Swimming and body surfing on the beach in front of Paul's was much more fun than struggling back from Smuggler's bay.

Then we swapped the van out for the pick-up and headed into the wadi to check out one of the newer climbing spots we take clients and try to get all the way up the wadi before dark. The new climbing spot is pretty cool, a smooth vertical climb up a dry waterfall (it isn't dry when it rains!) and a complete arch to the left. I'll post photos of it next time I go there. We drove most of the way up the wadi, through this really narrow solid rock section that was just amazing. At one point, the rock is just barely wide enough for a truck to get through. It's just solid rock that you can feel and see how the water has sculpted the rock in that tiny passage. The rock is smooth and round. I'm sure it pounds and crashes through there. It's hard to imagine what it looks like full of water, how the rocks and boulders and crevasses shape the rapids.



All of us want to find a safe, dry ledge up high in the wadi to sit out a proper rain storm and watch the chaos unfold below us. We got to a split in the road, by a fenced in mosque and realized we would have to turn around soon to make it out by dark. We decided to drive another three minutes on one of the roads, and had to choose which one. Ania said the one to the left looked new, curvy, steep and more interesting so we took that one. I was glad to have the pick-up with off road tires and 4 wheel drive because I needed it to get up that hill. At one point the road took a hard left and looked pretty washed out and loose on the left hand side, not wanting to dig the left side into a little ravine, we got out and walked to the top of the hill. We were greatly rewarded when we got up there. Almost magically, there were large villages on the tops of the hills, which had surprisingly large flat areas. You would never guess that the tops of the mountains in the wadi were so flat and that so many people lived up there. There are little clues as you drive through the wadi, even in the narrowest, steepest sections there are big white water tanks that maybe hold two hundred gallons or so. The Omani army drops them off with helicopters and trucks so that the villages have clean drinking water. As you drive through the wadi, you wonder where the village is and how on earth they get to the water. I drove up out of the rocky narrow wadi, up this crazy steep, hairpin washed out dirt road, to find a large village atop a flat mountain.
We needed to head back as the sun was starting to go down, and Eddie wanted to drive, so Ania and I jumped into the truck bed to get a better view of the wadi. Going down that crazy steep hill we sat with our feet against the front of the bed to keep ourselves from sliding downward.





At one point Eddie sped up to get up a hill, Ania and I were deep in conversation and not paying attention, rolled backwards and watched out feet go skyward simultaneously. We were sure Eddie did this on purpose and thought he must be having a good laugh. Turns out it was purely accidental and he missed the whole ordeal much to his regret.

On my second day here, Micah and I took the older kids from Uptown School sea kayaking. The forecast called for light wind in the morning, getting stronger in the afternoon, with possible storms. The sky was a pretty gray and we could see bands of dark clouds.
The wind was constant but not hard, maybe around 10-13 knots, and the sea was rolling swell around 2-3 feet. The wind was headed toward the shore, made it safe enough to take the kids out. We did decide it wasn’t wise to paddle all the way to our normal destinations, so instead we picked two stopping points within sight of the Golden Tulip resort and our starting point. After a Kayaking 101 on dry land, we hit the water.
Micah and I teaching on the beach.



The kids did well launching into crashing surf and paddling over the swell. The sea grew higher the further we paddled. Eventually we were among rolling swells between 3 and 4 feet. The kids were having fun and didn’t seem scared at all. When we reached the second stopping point, the swell became more vertical and choppy; making staying upright more challenging so we decided to turn around and head back. After turning around, a couple of boats flipped. The swimmers stayed calm and listened well to directions during the rescue, making it back into their boats in a minute or two. Everyone surfed the waves back onto the beach where we decided to go for a swim.

A narrow band of dark clouds was about to pass over us when we noticed a small tendril of cloud reaching downward about a mile off shore. We watched it grow longer and saw swirling spray of salt water it was pulling upward.



First, it moved parallel to shore but then turned, looking like it might head toward us.



If the spout came ashore, there was a nearby cement building we could seek shelter in. It turned again and headed to the far end of the beach. It transformed from waterspout to tornado as it came ashore. There was a family on that part of the beach, and they stood right there and watched it came ashore, no further from it than a few dozen feet. Did they not know what it was? Did they not think it was dangerous? I don’t know a way to tell how strong a tornado is from looking at it, and I’ve never been in one. I would have been scared being as close as they were. It squeezed between the bases of two mountains before retreating back into the band of clouds.