Eve and I spent the first six days of December 2001 diving in The Sultanate of Oman. This occupies the south-east corner of the Arabian Peninsula and the coastline extends from the Strait of Hormuz in the north, to the borders of the Republic of Yemen in the south and overlooks three seas - the Arabian Gulf, Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. Our first impression was that the seawater seemed ominously green. We knew that the visibility off Oman would not be as good as say the Red Sea but even so, when we first entered the water we were very disappointed by the poor visibility. Unfortunately it did not improve during our short holiday, varying from just three to at the very best ten metres.

For the first three days we dived with the Oman Dive Centre. MV Habiba and MV Danah took us to the Quriyat sites of Ra's Abu Da'ud and the wreck of the Quriyat and the Bandar Khayran sites of Wall Street, Cockleshell Bay and Purple Haze as well as Jissah Reef in Bandar Jissah. Highlights of these dives were Honeycomb Morays, Yellowmouth Morays, Moorish Idols, Painted Spiny Lobsters, Silver Batfish, a Turtle, a free swimming Giant Moral Eel, a Torpedo Ray, a large Darkspotted Stingray and an extremely large Grouper. During one Surface Interval we watched a large pod of Dolphins and on another occasion saw small Devil Rays leaping out of the sea.

For the second three days we dived with the DivEco Dive Centre. Our first four dives with DivEco were around Fahal Island which is 4 kilometres offshore of Muscat and a 30-minute boat ride from the dive centre. We dived North Point, North and South Bay, Bill's Bumps and The Tug Boat wreck. Highlights of these dives were three large Stingrays, Honeycomb Morays, Yellowmouth Morays, Moorish Idols, Cuttlefish, Giant Puffer and a Torpedo Ray. For our final days diving, DivEco took us to the Daymaniyat Islands, Oman's only marine National Nature Reserve, and considered to offer the best diving in the Gulf of Oman. The Daymaniyat Islands are a string of nine main islands with numerous satellite rocks, reefs and shoals stretching for 20 kilometres east-west and lying about 18 kilometres off the Batinah Coast. We dived Fad Island and the furthest eastern island of the Central Daymaniyat Islands. Fish highlights were Spiny Lobsters, Yellowmouth Moray Eels, two free swimming Honeycomb Moray Eels, two large Stingrays and a large Turtle. But the events above water were more memorable as our planned final dive of the holiday on the north side of one of the main central islands had to be abandoned. There is a police guardhouse on this island and Omani police from the guardhouse intercepted us in a small boat. We could see more small boats a short distance to the north of us and the Omani police explained they had just caught 40 smugglers attempting to smuggle drugs in from Iran and that we must move away. To the south of the Central Daymaniyat Islands we could see a large boat approaching from the Omani mainland, no doubt police reinforcements to collect the smugglers. We followed instructions, abandoned the planned dive on the north side of one of the main central islands and moved to the furthest eastern island instead.