Stand up paddleboarding is becoming quite popular in Oman and a
number of our friends have their own boards. January seemed to have been a busy
month for many of our friends, recovering from the excitement and
overindulgence of Christmas. For us, it was a busy time at work and also we had
the pleasure of entertaining our friends from Chicago, Sinead, Valerie and
Barry (Barry not so much of a pleasure!) So, a plan was hatched to do a bit of
a paddleboard safari around Bandar Khayran and a camping trip. I’ve tried SUPing
a few times and whilst it’s OK it doesn’t rock my boat, so to say. I’d much
rather be in a kayak. So that’s what we did.
There’s a little road that leads down to BK from the highway, which
is only accessible by a 4x4 – which meant a long walk for Anna!! Despite the
location being relatively inaccessible, it was still quite busy with families
picnicking and enjoying watersports, so we decided to set up our camp on one of
the neighbouring beaches. As the tide was out, loading up the kayaks and the
paddleboards and wading round the corner wasn’t too much of a big deal.
Bandar Kharyan is a small bay inlet about an hour's drive from The Wave on the road to Sifah. The scenery is absolutely stunning. Sadly, it was a bit windy and the video doesn't really do it justice, but hopefully it gives an idea of the crystal clear waters and beautiful coastline.
Now of course, it would be wrong for us to leave Ralph at home whilst we're off enjoying ourselves and he loves to get involved. He got to try both SUPing and kayaking, and whilst he was particularly skilled at SUPing, I think he prefers to be in the water rather than on it.
The placement of the tent is very important and we thought we were being clever and all Bear Grylls by looking at the tide mark before deciding where to set up camp. However, it turns out that we weren't so smart as we were enjoying our barbecue when the tide came right up and through the middle of the area where we were sitting. Fortunately, it just missed the tents, so we were good for a dry night's sleep!
So the idea of having a nice quiet beach away from everyone else was a good idea on the night before, the morning after we had to resolve the issue of getting all of our stuff back to the car, now that the tide was in. After a bit of head scratching we decided to lash together three of the SUPs and load our kit onto that. I then towed everything back to the cars in the kayak. It was a bit hairy at times, making sure I kept it all balanced, but we made it back in one piece with everything still dry. That just left the others to swim round!
