9.11. Sea trip to the island

Around 6 a.m. the rain wakes us up, exactly according to the forecast, so we are not surprised, we just close the tents. But it's quite windy, so I can't sleep, after a while it gets too much and suddenly it's 10am. We are still not aligned with the 3h shift. On the other hand, the children have been up since morning, they have plowed half of the sandy area and they prefer not to wake us up so as not to force them to have breakfast. The only complaint is that the locals walking by are taking pictures. We have breakfast and plan a trip to the nearest island, it is 0.5 km by sea and should be walkable at low tide. Low tide comes out at 13:37, we want to go an hour earlier and when we get there we will have 2 hours to return. The local fishermen keep offering us a ride to the other islands, but we refuse, we want to go to the one with the lookout and then we'll see each other. At the tip of the peninsula, waves from two sides meet and intermingle in an interesting way, at low tide it is almost calm, we are only scared by the crowds of crabs that hide in the exposed coastal stones. The water is very warm, the sun is hot, I'm glad that I freshened up in my clothes before the trip, it cools me down (bathing and showering in clothes is completely normal here, "swimsuits" should cover arms up to the elbows and legs up to the knees, i.e. tourists, locals bathe fully covered). The children splash in the water, we have backpacks, so we hope that the water will not be more than waist-deep. But we have the documents in the boat just to be sure. It's about half an hour before low tide and the water is no higher than our knees. On the island, stone steps lead up to the top to the lookout tower, there are a number of turns to gazebos that were made of wood and have been taken away by time, even the steps from below are already being eaten away by the sea. The trees around the stairs are completely dry, but there are old irrigation hoses around them. It looks like this was once a grand multi-picnic island project that someone gave up on. There are beautiful views along the way, there is a lookout tower at the top, which also remembers better times, but the massive wooden door is broken, so we climb up. There are no railings in the mezzanines, so we walk carefully, the staircase is not even lit, but if you stick to the center, nothing can happen to you. From the observation deck, you can climb the ladder to the roof and you will be at the very top. We are completely alone on the whole island, probably nobody wants to come here in this heat, but it's worth it. We have a snack in the shadow of the tower, then Ota looks at the sea and reports that the water has jumped a lot lately, so we quickly return, the water level is a good 30 cm higher, but still with a margin. We admire and watch a starfish stuck on one of the sand islands. The children don't want to go to other islands by boat, so we stay to swim on the beach near the tent. Around 4 p.m., the locals start to arrive, more and more of them, and we wonder what's going on when nobody was here yesterday. Then we meet French tourists and we soon get tired of it, here they have Friday and Saturday off, so Thursday night is like our Friday. Everywhere there are groups of Omanis who have brought pots, carpets and lights and are cooking and picnicking. Most are very quiet, but one bunch is obviously having a kid's birthday party and they're making noise late into the night. There are also quite a few cars going directly to the beach. Some slowly, respectfully, and some with music at full blast. We don't get much sleep.