Mahé, Seychelles, to Salalah, Oman

16 - 18 May 2008

Camels, frankincense and air conditioning

As we had been warned, landing and handling fees at Mahé were steep: 457 euros of which 120 was handling fees and the 3 landing fees were 106 euros each. It is all run by Air Seychelles.
We took off just after 8 a.m. Five hours later, as we approached the Somalia FIR boundary, we encountered as expected from the infrared satellite photos our old friend, the intertropical convergence zone, and we then had a 400 nautical mile battle with it. This made Angela stop working on our web site as she was happily doing to pass the time on the first part of the trip. You know it’s a hefty storm when the stormscope lights up like a Christmas tree and the segments start flashing. It wasn’t as difficult, though, as on our South Atlantic crossing to Brazil in 2005 and we didn’t have to make any time consuming detours to avoid the thunderstorms. It was our take-off weight with 15 hours of fuel, coupled with a headwind as we approached Oman that slowed us down quite a bit. The flight was supposed to take ‘only’ 9 and a half hours but it took 10 hours, 11 minutes.
On arrival at Salalah, we were greeted by the police and a guy from the operations office to whom we paid a reasonable 34 dollars for the landing and parking fee. He had to fill in a form with our point of departure. When we told him ‘Seychelles’, he asked us to write down the word for him. The poor fellow had never heard of the country. After all, it is one of the smallest countries in the world.
Mohammed, the Oman Oil representative was also there to greet us, together with the 200 litre barrel of Avgas that we had ordered the company to ship from Muscat. It was close to sunset and, although the air temperature was still 30 C, there was a pleasant breeze. We were tired but it was a good time to spend on the tarmac so we did the refueling.
Customs and immigration formalities were swift, in spite of the need for a visa. Air crew don’t need a visa for stays of up to 5 days, but we are staying in Oman for a week. Then we took a taxi to the Crowne Plaza Resort and celebrated with margaritas and Lebanese mezzah (appetizers), grilled lobster and a good bottle of Chilean Sauvignon Blanc.

17 May. Dry and dusty Salalah contrasts dramatically with the sultry, steamy Seychelles. It’s hot here but it’ll be even hotter in Muscat. We spent a relaxing morning by the hotel pool and beach. Late afternoon we drove to west along the coast to Mughsail beach and blowholes.

18 May. Just managed to upload the last three logbook pages before our laptop completely froze up and refused to reboot. Probably a serious hardware error, which we hope to get repaired under warranty in Muscat.
We drove up to the Dhofar mountains and Job’s tomb and saw lots of camels on the way as well as some gnarled Frankincense trees. Although the Omanis generally tolerate foreign women visitors not wearing something to cover their head, Angela had to cover up at the tomb. Her beach wrap has come in most useful as both a wrap and a towel up to now, but this was the first time she’s used it as a headdress. On our way back to the hotel we stopped off in Salalah and had fun looking for something suitable for her to wear in Iran where both the hair and the bum need to be hidden. Late afternoon, we visited the Frankincense Land museum near the hotel.