25:20.00N 55:12.00E
Bryan writes...
Helen and I brought Aroha home to Dubai, taking about a day and a half from Fujairah and arriving yesterday morning.
This passage took us through the well known Straits of Hormuz, where Iran is only about forty miles from Oman. All the traffic going into and out of the Persian Gulf is squeezed through, and smugglers in high powered speedboats zip backwards and forwards carrying contraband into Iran and (so I’m told) goats into Oman. In the past we have been called by both the UAE Coastguard and the Oman Navy to suggest we don’t go too close to Iranian waters. They have a habit of holding boats that stray into their waters. Besides, my insurance loses its validity too.
There is a lot of smog and pollution in the air at the moment, so arriving back into the Gulf wasn’t an altogether ‘welcoming’ experience. On the upside, we had some spectacular sun-ups and sun-downs, of the type that only occur when the atmosphere is heavily chemically altered.
After sailing across about 1,600 miles of water thats at least a few thousand meters deep, it took some getting used to seeing numbers under a hundred meters (and under twenty meters for the last few hours into Dubai) on the instruments.
In a way I’ve been regretting writing this last blog. Of course it signals the end of this adventure, but I feel like I should also write some sort of ‘summary’ of feelings of the whole experience. I don’t think I can, and so I will leave you with some numbers, some of which in retrospect, surprised me.
Total duration of trip: six months and two weeks
Number of nautical miles covered: 5,835
Number of nights on passage: 58
Number of nights at anchor in harbours: 29
Number of nights at anchor outside harbours: 102
Maldives atolls visited (out of 26): 10
Maldives islands visited (out of 1,190): 24
Number of times Aroha ‘touched bottom: 1
Number of time Bryan wore shoes: 1
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