Riding the Desert Dunes of Oman
Riding the Desert Dunes of Oman
by Sam
Bleakley
Pinned to the corner of the Arabian
Peninsula, Oman is currently the promised land of Middle East surf, packed with
consistent head-high waves and empty pointbreaks. This place is neither
bloodstained with oil-based conflict, nor the site of mass starvation. Oman is
at peace, and the locals at peace with their fluid home, stretching beyond the
reach of desert war zones. Driving with a surfEXPLORE crew from the capital
Muscat to the exposed east coast skeins of sand loom like a glassy swell in a
white-hot sea. But the waves never break. They hover in a surreal sweat.
Bleached by reflected light, my eyes trick me, until a searing wind snips the
mirage into ribbons. I cannot help but speed down the empty highways with the
cliché road movie in mind. This is suddenly David Lynch territory - I recall
Lynch’s adaptation of Dune, the
archetypal desert sci-fi novel. At any moment, I expect those enormous sandworms
to rear up. But of course, there is just the hum of the surfboard straps and my
worm eyes scanning the ever-receding horizon.
The desert’s barchan dunes seem to feather
like waves as the wind whips across their crests. Like the ocean, the desert changes
with time - a moving feast. Today’s marker will be gone tomorrow. No wonder we
use the metaphor a ‘sea’ of sand. We try sand boarding, but our boards simply
sinks rather than glide, and we quickly make tracks for the sandstone breaks
around Al Ashkharah. In the hot, salty Arabian Sea, real liquid three foot
waves throw perfect patterns over a long shallow right-hander.
Midday passes, and a dry wind picks up,
raising temperatures to 40°s. The camels now
come into their own - graceful in this setting. Camels are notoriously
single-minded, choosy about whom they please. While I feed them bananas, they
are just as interested in a parched piece of cardboard which has fallen to the
ground. As I kick it away, one of the camels shows her frustration. She stares
down her nose at me, blinks through her double row of extra-long eyelashes
(wonderfully adapted for keeping sand out), and flares a hairy nostril. Her lip
stretches out six inches, and shakes uncontrollably. She lets out a roaring
groan, her cheeks bellow, she swirls up something from her stomach and begins
to gather saliva. We retreat, bent over double with laughter. The powerful spit
misses us by inches.
After weeks in temperatures hot enough to
boil blood, where the lonely waves mirror back a searing sun with a wet glare,
we drive back to Muscat. The sun tips whole into a saffron sky. At the close of
a great and instructive desert trip, there is the welcome cloak of dusk. As
night falls, the streets gather the smell of frankincense and sandalwood. It
grows more intense; the moon rises and hangs like a silver sword.
