Oman Sail - Diving the Damaniyats

[Searcaigh]

I was in Oman for business last week and had arranged to stay at the Millennium Hotel and dive with Oman Sail the operation that is based there.



The op is run by a guy called Richard who has thousands of dives under his belt, and I had met him at the Dubai boat show a couple of months ago. The dive op has been running for just over a year now and has a very nice dive boat, pretty fast too considering its size (clocked 42KPH on my GPS), so getting to the Damaniyats did not take too long.



They also boast the only Nitrox membrane system in the Gulf too, all the fills I had were bang on 32%



All in all I had 4 dives that cost OMR72 as I provided all my own gear. Millennium rates are OMR55 per night

Loads of cuttlefish bonking right now





Planning to go back to Oman possibly in June, July and August

 

[MasterChief D]

Which dive sites did you visit?

 

[Abdullah]

Which marina does the boat operate from?

 

[Searcaigh]

Dimitris,

2 dives on Sira Island on Thursday, plus 1 dive at the Aquarium and 1 dive at Walid Junn on Friday

Abdullah,

The boat operates out of the marina at the Millennium Hotel.

 

[MasterChief D]

I'm green with envy
Might join you in June...

 

[Searcaigh]

Your company would be most appreciated.

I was also half thinking of taking Yanni there in July but may do Dibba Rock on a Saturday with Palms Dive Center and then dive Inch 10 with CTD on the Sunday as she needs a refresher having not dived in almost a year. We do have 2 weekends between coming back from Scotland and off to Indonesia, so Damaniyats is possible in July too.

Richard mentioned a 3 tank dive at Aquarium if conditions were suitable with an early start.

I have dived that site before and it is probably the best of all the Damaniyats although closer to Muscat than Mussanah.

I also heard that Extra Divers are closing down at Al Sawadi and opening up at another location in Barka with a mere 15 min boat ride to the Damaniyats. Not sure of the new hotel yet or even if it is built, plus all the permits etc that are required in Oman to move operations etc., but from what I have heard from Richard it is complicated enough even for a government run operation.

Given the choice of hotels between the Millenium and Al Sawadi, the Millenium wins hands down and it is cheaper. Al Sawadi needs serious renovation as it was well run down when I stayed there in Feb 2013

 

[MasterChief D]

Looking forward to - seems I need to start booking time on the calendar for July.

Yanni can do the refresher with me (if she/you want).

Safe travels for now & see you on Sat.

 

[Searcaigh]

Returned back to the Millennium Resort at Mussanah, having driven down to Oman last Friday.

One thing to note is that the UAE border crossing is now fully operational at the new building, just stay in your car and queue up on exit from UAE however non-GCC citizens have to park and go into the building for entry into the UAE.

Unfortunately the large boat had a catastrophic engine failure with one of its engines, and the second one was close to having a problem after they made some checks, so it will need to go to Salalah for a refit, only 1,000 Km away

Transport to and from the Damaniyats is now by a small boat with twin 250 HP Honda Outboards, time to Sira Island was 40 minutes.



Just noticed that the site is about to go offline for daily maintenance so will continue later

---------- Post added January 5th, 2015 at 06:36 PM ----------

Part 2

Water Temps were 24C, however I had decided to wear my 7mm semi-dry plus Lavacore hooded vest, nice and comfy during both dives and on the trip back was not cold at all unlike my daughter who decided to wear her 3.2.2 under her 5.4.3 for the first dive (West Wall), however she was rather constricted and bailed out of the second dive resulting in me doing a solo around Sira island as everyone else had buggered off to the "Mousetrap" although I did that dive site the following day with Thani, one of the Omani DMs, which is where we found a drowned hawksbill turtle in a fishing net.



The second day I dived "Doc's Wall first, then the "Mousetrap", great viz on both dives, although a slight current at Doc's Wall when we came up a the shallow (12M) area and spotted 4 green turtles. At Moustrap we spotted 3 hawksbills including the dead one.



There were stacks of morays all over, especially the honeycomb variety.



and a few yellow mouths



Pair of Risbecia pulchella was a nice addition as I had only seen a single lonesome one up until that point



A lot of the Acropora palmata around Siri has loads of Citron Gobies, although it was nigh impossible to get a decent shot with the 60mm lens, so this is a slightly cropped shot



105mm really required for this fish that is for sure, but I have never seen so many in one piece of coral, and most of the Acropora had quite a few residents.

The DMs Saif and Thani are great, plus they are ex-Al Suwaidi and have many years of knowledge diving the Damaniyats. The diving at Al Suwaidi is now being run by Euro Divers after Extra Divers departed last year.

 

[Searcaigh]

Some shots from yesterday's dives at "Doc's Wall" and Sira Island at the Damaniyats

 

[Jana Murray]

We were on Aquarium last month and I swam and filmed a whale shark for 15 minutes:

15 Minutes Alone with a Whale Shark | Dubai Corporate Video Production - Seraph Production

The diving on Damayiyats is world class.