On The Beach

A tranquil night at anchor ends in hurricane-force wind and a dramatic beaching

- Barry Gray

Musandam, lying south of the Straits of Hormuz in the Sultanate of Oman, is known affectionately as the Arabian Fjords. There, steep glacial mountains plunge into crystal-clear water hundreds of feet deep, and numerous long, broad channels push some 10 miles inland from the Arabian Gulf. It’s a remote area, accessible only by boat, with the few visible signs of human habitation clinging to narrow foreshores.

It was therefore with some excitement that my wife, Judi, the co-owner of my boat, Asli Plail, and I planned a spring cruise on Rahala (Arabic for Voyager), our Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 36i. As we obtained the necessary sailing permit from the Omani embassy in our home port of Dubai, we planned our departure for the third week of March, when we anticipated pleasant temperate spring whether before the summer heat set in Little did we know that our timetable would coincide with a low-pressure system moving down the Arabian Gulf from the cooler, winter climates of Syria and Iraq.

After a pleasant two-day sail to get to Musandam, we enjoyed three days of watching dolphins, cruising the channels and relaxing. On our final night before heading for home, we anchored toward the end of the wide Kawr Nafizi channel opposite one of the larger shoreline villages and just a few miles from the Arabian Gulf. This would give us an easy exit the next morning.

Rather than anchoring in the middle of the channel, exposed to the elements and in the way of traffic, I picked a spot with some limited shelter not far from a small rocky outcrop and dropped our Danforth anchor and all 80ft of chain and around 20ft of rope over the side, giving us a scope of a little over 5:1.