Extra Divers - Al Sawadi Beach Resort

[Searcaigh]

Had a business trip to Oman this week and decided to go a day earlier in order to squeeze in a dive or two.

I booked into the Al Sawadi Beach Resort Hotel, which is sadly still a tired old place and overpriced but convenient for using the dive shop / resort next door, now run by Extra Divers

The drive down from Dubai was okay until I reached Sohar, lots of road works from there on, and in fact the turn off for Al Sawadi now requires doing a U-turn and coming back up the road again, fortunately I had the coordinates in my GPS otherwise I would have missed it completely in the dark.

The hotel is not much to rave about and I guess about 75% + of the clientele are German. Bar service is incredibly slow in the restaurant.

Extra Divers have really changed things around from the previous organization that ran the dive shop, perhaps some teutonic efficiency is what was really needed, there is much better wash area and drying shed totally covered plus lockers to put personal gear in.

The day before I arrived they had to cancel the dive due to bad weather, so I changed over from my planned wide angle to macro, actually the visibility at the dive sites we visited was not too bad 5-10m excellent in my opinion since my last dives off UAE were in 2M of murk.

45 min boat ride out to the Damaniyat Islands is on a nice spacious boat with a real mix of people, apart from myself, two Frenchies and a Spaniard, the other five divers were German. A second boat was also leaving about 30 minutes after the first one that I was on.

Dive time was set to 50 bar or 60 mins, which is fine by me.

One of the DMs on the boat took a look at my gear + camera + pony and asked me if I wanted to dive with anyone, I said I would tag along but not to worry if you don't see me until after the dive, it all worked well and I had two pretty good solo dives.

No much to eat during the SI though, few oranges and tea with sugar in it and a couple of biscuits. Very little water on board.

Damaniyat Islands probably have the best diving in this region, with frequent Whale Shark sightings during the season, but not during the winter.

Price for two dives with all of my own equipment was OMR33 (USD85.44)

Found one of the most colourful scorpionfish I had seen for a long time

Not many nudibranchs though at the two sites I dived, this Phidiana indica was spotted at "Garden of Eden" dive site

Hopefully I will be back down there again in a couple of months time and plan to dive with them again.

 

[toozler]

Searcaigh, thanks for the review! I have also been to Oman multiple times on business trips and always try to squeeze some dives on the weekends. I dove with Extra Divers in 4 occasions in the past 2 years, being three at Al Sawadi and once from the Oman Dive Center in Muscat.

The guy running the operations in Muscat was extremely rude and unpleasant - I was looking at a map of the dive sites that was hanging near the counter and he yelled from the back on a most arrogant tone - What is it that you want? - as if he was bothered by me. Well, never came back there after, diving near Muscat wasn't great anyway.

The operations at Al Sawadi were run in the past by a German couple, Nicky and Markus. On my last visit they had new management, Nino and Tina, an Italian couple. I haven't noticed any significant changes, I usually enjoy diving with them there. The Daymaniats are great, I had my whale shark encounter there on my first visit.

Never stayed at the hotel but usually eat lunch there after diving - all good too.

 

[Jarno]

Nice to see a report about Oman! I've been living here now for about a year and a half and really enjoy the diving around the Dimaniyat Islands. Also the area around Bandar Khirran is quite nice. Normally we always dive with Euro divers, which is a nice operation with good boats and equipment although the trip to Dimaniyat is a bit long (approx 1 hour) perhaps you should give them a try next time.

 

[kheldz]

Hi , agree to a certain extent with your review, been to sawadi over 30 times last 5 years, and not much progress has happened (except the SPA and a few superficial changes on the way the place looks). Having said that, new boats are in, and lets be honest, we're there to dive

Daimaniyat is hands down the best dive spot within 5-6 hour radius ...depending on time of the year you may get whale sharks (summer)


https://vimeo.com/46575669

https://vimeo.com/47919464


cuttlefish mating season (https://vimeo.com/32685160) towards winter ...where by the macro tends also to be seasonal ..at times not much to see where as others cant get ur head out of the bottom here's a video that covers most of what you'll probably end up seeing
https://vimeo.com/28586195

 

[atmozcube]

Hi there,

true, I have been there few times as well and there has not been any progress made.
Because of overbooking I managed to go next door to the Oman Sail Dive Center in the Millennium Hotel.
Decent 4 star hotel with a well functioning dive center. You don't even have to carry your equipment
to the boat as they do it for you. Price for tanks and weights only 36 Rials for a two tank dive. Bit pricier then Extra, but
you get a damn decent diving boat with toilet, showers, diving platform and a great fly-bridge.
Also the food between dives is great. We had cold cuts, juices and water.
You have to book in advance as they are rather full on certain days and dates.

The last time we dived with them @ Aquarium / Damaniyats, we managed to see lots of Nudi's and a huge 4 mt Bullshark. Scared the living
daylight out of us! Came through a cloud of blue and yellow striped snappers and nearly bumped into us. Literally!

Otherwise, I can only recommend the Dive Centre and the Millennium Hotel as an very good alternative.

 

[Searcaigh]

Heading down to Oman tomorrow and have tentatively booked Oman Dive and Sail via phone for Friday and Saturday as they are not responding to my e-mails.

Any Oman based divers around at the moment?