It is always great when we are able to do a job that we truly love and can share with others but especially with family.
I had my Mom and partner along with a few old family friends from South Africa visit us in Dubai. We initially had been playing tour guide around Dubai and showing everyone all the amazing sights and shops around Dubai. I thought it was tough showing clients around, but family is 10 times harder as you want to make sure everything is 110%!
But it was all good fun and really nice to have them out here and show them what we do! It is quite amazing, when I grew up it was the same group of family and friends that used to take me fishing, camping and on various adventures in and around South Africa. I think this is where I get my longing for adventure and my passion for fishing. So it is really nice that I’m able to repay the compliment.
After spending a few days in Dubai seeing all the sights like the Tallest Building, Tallest Hotel, Fountains and multiple Souks (local markets) we headed for our Ocean Active territory, M
usandam Oman. I had arranged one of the 70ft liveaboard dhows that we use for charters so we could stay up in the Musandam for three days and took our 40ft Center Console “Al Sayyad” with Capt Cameron Mundy one of our captains and guides to help out. It was all a bit of a culture shock from Dubai as Dibba Musandam Oman is a rather rural little town, but has an amazing atmosphere and an old World vibe. It is a short 1.75 hours drive from Dubai but it is Worlds apart. So after many pictures we managed to pack all the gear onto the dhow and left for our 3 day adventure.
From the start we got into great fish. We were not using heavy popping gear as normal but mainly light tackle with small swimbaits and stickbaits. We managed to catch some nice kingfish, GTs, bigeye trevally and queenfish. We caught a great sailfish one evening with all of the family on the boat including my 2 year old son. We all had a front row seat of the aerial display! Really amazing to watch and to have everyone on the boat. We must have got hundreds of pictures of the battle and then of the fish before the sailfish was released back into the water to fight another day.
We fished for the next few days with perfect weather and company. We had some huge fish take the lures that we could not stop but all part of the fun of fishing with light tackle. We would wake up in the morning have breakfast on the upper deck of the dhow and head out for a bit of fishing and then come back for lunch a short cat nap and then head out for a late afternoon fishing session. Some of the team would decide to stay on the dhow and swim to the island, snorkel or paddle around on one of the kayaks. Then in the evening we sat on the upper deck of the dhow under the stars and reminisced of passed trips and adventures, a really special time. It was truly a relaxing trip and how any fishing trip should be! Not all fishing trips are about catching huge fish it is all about having a great experience and creating long lasting memories, especially with family!
