Wednesday 16th April

During the night we exited the Gulf of Oman entering the Straits of Hormuz which we traversed through the night in thick fog, the ships fog horn sounding every two minutes. I got up at about 5am for a quick look, it was not only foggy but it was raining (again) unusual for the Persian Gulf, there was nothing but a few ships lights, again at 6:30am after daybreak nothing but fog, which was a shame because these straits can be spectacular on a clear day. Anyway that’s life, maybe when we come back it will be daylight and the mist will have cleared (then it won’t be missed 🙂 ). Cocktails with the Captain and other officers again today 11:30am, unusual time but never one to turn down free champagne, off we went. The captain and officers were not shaking hands on account of the tightened hygiene regulations which meant that the queue moved a lot faster than usual. After that we went down, got changed into less formal attire and Carol went to sunbathe, I went for a pint.

We arrived off Abu Dhabi at 5.15pm. The shoreline an uninspiring flat plain with tower blocks, looking like a bar chart from a distance. As we drew nearer we could see huge areas of virgin reclaimed land, rolled completely flat and surrounded by rough stone breakwaters. A solitary tug boat was going round and round in circles spraying water from its single fire fighting nozzle, like an excited puppy wetting itself when people come to visit. Within minutes of obtaining clearance (6:00pm) people were streaming ashore, so some must have cabin fever, we will wait for tomorrow when we are going on a dhow trip. I was last here in 1967 and there wasn’t much to see then, it seems to have changed a tad now.