Masirah Island for Eid Holid

We planned this trip to Masirah Island gosh, back at the beginning of March I think. Even still, it just crept up on us. Brigham was the one the most excited about going. The potential for finding shells was so exciting to him. Masirah Island is Oman's biggest Island and it's about 5 hrs from Muscat to the Ferry over to the island. It's home to lots of turtles including Loggerhead turtles.

On the way to the ferry we passed the salt flats.This man made himself a salt flat shelter and sold giant bags of salt.

We had to taste it.

We also got a taste for some of the interesting sea life around the island on the shore of Oman. I believe this is the carcass of a guitarfish, but actually I don't really know. It could just be a regular ray. The tail seemed especially long to me though.

Entrails of I don't know what.

We left Muscat Friday after church and caravanned down with Jill and Pete and Lauren, Mo and Lauren's sister Heather. We took the 5pm ferry over after meeting up with Lauren's friends Jessica and Matt and we got into Masirah around sunset.

Since it was still Ramadan and Mo had been fasting we went straight to Iftar at a delicious Lebanese restaurant. (I think it was Lebanese.) The kids were able to socialize, especially Elise. She and Fin hit it off really well and loved playing together.

The Ferry was nice. Elise was a little wild but she ended up telling Mo all the scary stories that she knew and they became very good friends.

Brigham swims with Paul at TAISM though they are 2 grades apart. They enjoyed each other's company well enough.

We stayed at the Masirah Beach Camp which we were really worried about because our rooms didn't have AC. We thought maybe it would be ok because-beach windy etc. Well, they were plywood boxes. Very little ventilation, no fans, HOT! The first night was pretty miserable. The kids whimpered all night. I was miserable all night. It was a relief to get up and get out of there. It was actually pretty lovely outside with the breeze.

Sennia and I went for a walk on the kind of mucky beach. Low tide anyway and it was out. We didn't really go very far.

What you can't see here are flamingos. We could see them much better in person but we got closer and they moved further so this was the best our phone could do.

I'm afraid this blog post is going to be a little haphazard. I'm having trouble loading the photos in the right order and I'm so behind on my blogging that in the interest of actually getting it done, we're going to just go for it. This picture almost speaks for itself. We went to a couple of beaches on our main day in Masirah. The first beach was hard to swallow because of all the trash. We bagged up one garbage bag and then did some snorkeling. It looked absolutely stunning from the beach but there really wasn't much to see in the water. This picture was at the 2nd beach. A beach known for turtle hatching. Even though we were there kind of late morning, Sam found this little baby wandering around lost. He was parched and soon to be seagull snacks. We all gushed over him and finally helped him swim out. Sadly, a seagull still picked him off which was rather heart-breaking.

Brigham's entire intent traveling to Masirah was hunting for shells. This urchin test was rather lovely and different.

He found all but 2 of the shells he was looking for, well, probably not true but he found many. He is still on the hunt for a paper nautilus and . . . I think it's a bubble shell called the Eloisa but I can't remember for sure. I know he also wanted to find the shells unique to Oman to donate to the Natural History Museum.

Sennia and I enjoyed finding this lovely anemone in the tide pools. She was a little bit odd girl out since Elise had Fin and Alena hung with Payton quite a bit.

Elise and Fin spent hours playing with hermit crabs and making homes for them.

Brigham's Bucket.

In between those last two beaches we stopped at this beach to take a look. There were camels there wondering what we were up to and if we'd brought anything tasty.

Back at the Beach Camp we stayed up late. The kids played some games, we had Iftar and chatted before finally hitting the sack. Heather was SOOOO kind and slept on a mattress on the floor of Lauren and Mo's room so my girls and I could sleep in the AC. They were sunburned and I was dreading another night when they were going to be giving off so much heat. It felt so good to sleep in there.