Tamara Pitelen goes looking for turtles just two hours from Dubai, armed with her Open Water Diver certificate and a longing for real-life Nemo fish.
If someone gave you a map of the world and asked you to stick a pin in Dibba, I wouldn’t really blame you if your expression took on that of a slapped trout.
Unless you’ve had a good nose around in every nook and cranny of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) over on the Arabian Peninsula, just a bit to the left from Saudi Arabia, chances are you’ll have never heard of Dibba. You’ve probably heard of its flashy neighbour though, Dubai, a place that makes Las Vegas look subtle and constrained.
Just a couple of hours drive from Dubai, Dibba is one of the main towns in the emirate of Fujairah and, like Dubai, Fujairah is one of the seven emirates that make up the UAE. That’s about all they have in common. If Dubai is Paris Hilton, Fujairah is the shy girl next door. But one thing that Dibba does better than Dubai is diving – in a nutshell there’s much more to see and the water’s clearer, which is why I was there recently.
Having recently received my PADI Open Water Diver certification, the oceans were a calling and when it comes to donning a scuba tank and getting below sea level,
Dibba is a crystal clear diver’s treasure chest of marine life. The waters are so warm you don’t need a wetsuit and swimming happily within them is everything from turtles to Moray eels, barracuda, trumpet fish, angel fish, crayfish, stingrays, puffer fish, clown fish (the Nemo ones), black tip reef sharks (harmless, apparently, but wouldn’t poke them with a stick or anything) as well as huge schools of small tropical fish.
Dubai used to have reasonable diving but the unabated construction frenzy that’s going on just off the coast has disrupted the marine environment and left the sea full of silt which means there’s not much left to see and what there is you can’t see for all the murk. The price you pay for having fancy palm and world-shaped developments.
So there I was, on my first certified dive. This means it was the first time that no instructor was hovered over my shoulder to make sure I’d assembled my equipment properly and turned my oxygen on before doing a back roll off the boat – crucial, if you’re planning to breathe underwater. But happily for the new and nervous diver, you don’t have to go very far or very deep in Dibba to access the best diving and snorkeling site in the UAE, namely, Dibba Rock.
Just a five minute boat ride from the beach, Dibba Rock is part of a marine reserve so fishing is prohibited, that’s what makes it so rich with marine life. On that first unsupervised dive I floated over huge beds of raspberry coloured coral as well as got in the face of countless marine creatures.
The highlights were the four black tip reef sharks that slowly circled the area, the huge clouds of thousands of multi-coloured tropical fish and the turtles. The diving fraternity has very firm rules about mingling with marine life, basically you can look but keep your hands to yourself. However, when you’re so close to a turtle that you just have to put your hand out to run a finger down its shell, it’s a woman of strong convictions who can resist. I’m not that girl. The turtle didn’t seem to mind though, I’m not even sure it noticed. I’ll never forget it.
The Facts
Fujairah extends 70km on the Gulf of Oman, its total area covers 1450sq km of mountains, hills, plains and desert. The population is about 100,000.
The climate in Fujairah is semi tropical meaning it’s hot most of the time and rain is rare.
Useful Websites
Fujairah Tourism Bureau
Freestyle Divers
Email: freestyle@eim.ae
Located in the grounds of the Royal Beach Hotel, Dibba, boats for divers and snorkellers leave for Dibba Rock three times a day, at 9.30am, 12.30pm and 3.30pm. Freestyle Divers also teach PADI courses. Other dive trips are also offered.
Pavilion Dive Centre
If you want to learn to dive in Dubai then visit Dibba, one option is the Pavilion Dive Centre located in the Jumeirah Beach Hotel.
www.jumeirahbeachhotel.com/dive_centre/dive_centre/
