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Anyone have any news on the status of the red tide in Musandam? (since last post 24th Feb)
Going to Dubai 6th April and was thinking of diving either in Dibba, Fujeirah or Khasab. Anyone know how things are looking in these places and where's the best spot for wildlife in general?
I was diving in Mussandam about two weeks ago ( around March 5). We travelled by Dhow out of Dibba and travelled up the coast for about 2 1/2 hrs. Red tide was most notable at Dibba marina and continued north for about 1 1/2 hours (sorry, don't know the distance). There were also patches of red tide around our dive site.
I typically dive in / around Carribean, so diving here was a bit different. I asked several times about expected visability, DM and clients all said it will be fantastic/beautiful. The best you can find anywhere. I found the vis to be about 20 ft...then I realized the other divers were from Great Britain, Canada, etc. and told tales of learning how to dive with 5 ft vis...so it's all relative. 20 ft vis to me means I'm cancelling the day's dive and I'm hanging out with a rum punch, listening to the local band...to other folks it's fantastic and they travel long distances to see 20 ft. So fair warning.
I started the dive trip, scheduling with an operation called Diver's Down (Khorfakkan, Fujeirah). Nice folks. The UAE Coast Guard suspended all diving (due to the weather...hmmm not a cloud in the sky, flat calm...another UAE moment...apparently this has been happening frequently)...Diver's Down arranged for us to travel up the coast to Dibba, Oman (bring passport), Dhow Boat ride up the Omani coast and diving. Nice day. Diving not spectacular, water is cold (3 - 5 m would be nice)...nice variety of fish...nothing spectacular, not great volume, ....really cool bioluminescent jelly fish (in the daylight, but shadow of cliffs)....which I spent too much time with and ended up with souvenier JF rashbut. oops. Interesting school of squid hung out with me while I did my safety stop.
Good luck on your explorations. Another note, I attempted to go diving with the Abu Dhabi dive operation, but when I arrived at the dive boat, they didn't have a ladder for exiting the water...no kidding....I'm a disabled diver, so I had to cancel my trip. I've heard vis off Abu Dhabi and Dubai is 5 ft due to the construction of the islands...reefs destroyed etc. I heard this from local divers who have stopped diving anywhere in UAE due to lack of visability.
East coast (fujeirah etc) is completly blown out with red tide. I was there last weekend and Martini rock, Dibba rock, Sharm Rocks and Inchcape 2 were all about 2ft vis. We managed one dive on dibba but spent it chasing patches of blue water. Most of the corals are dead and virtually no sea life.
By all accounts musandum is affected to a lesser extent with alot of the sites further up (lima rock, octopus rock etc) being virtually red tide free.
To the poster above, the vis in abu dhabi and dubai is alot better that 5ft, We had 20metres on zainab last weekend!!!!!!! Its getting a lot better quickly due to most of the off shore construction being finished/suspended.
Hope this helps
North of dibba is better, red tide almost completely gone, had 1 thin patch of red tide in blue sea. Apparently sout of dibba, red tide comes and goes, depending on the wind direction. Will let you know in 2 weeks time how it is then.
Just dived Hablayn, Octopus Rock and Lima Rock with Freestyle Divers. There was red tide up there but not the thick **** you get around Dibba and Khor Fakkan. Under 2m it went back to normal. Saw leopard shark, loads of giant honecomb morays, turtles. Nothing too exciting, but the enormity of the whip coral beds on octopus and lima are awe inspiring and do not seem to have been affected by the red tide.
Contact Freestyle Divers freestyle@eim.ae, they will take you up there by fast boat or dhow.
We dove yesterday at Inchcape 1. The vis was quite a bit lower than I was expecting, in the area of 3 to 5 meters at the bottom, but the DM mentioned that the fish were starting to come back.
hey guys i run nomad in dibbah so i get to fo every weekend, 2 weeks ago the red tide had actually completely vanished from dibah all the way to the caves all the way to lima area, the scene is definetly getting better considering that now a days the cave does have celar water some days considering that his place has had the red tide non stop from september all the way to now. Habalayn got pretty affected some reefs are completely dead and like in the caves the corals are crumbling i went night diving there last week for fun and i saw crabs picking huge bits of dead corals if anyone now why i would love to get enlightened! In the last couple of days now we are getting on the beach of dibah green balls of alguae so i guess the its good news i really hope it gets better soon and that the remaining corals survive the mussamdan and the east coast has been through a lot in the last couple of year between the bloddy oil spills, the cyclone gonu and now the red tide, if any of you guys wants to get regular idea of the red tide you can join my group on facebook i send weekly reports of the vis as well as the red tide Its in nomad ocean adventur
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