A Pefect Plan - Sea Kayaking Umm Al Quwain

The crew practicing lashing the halyards

Dan, a friend from the Army, has been a long time resident in the Middle East. He has adapted to many aspects of middle eastern life. He speaks Arabic, is comfortable with all the local customs but best of all he has a jalboot, the Zou Zou. This class is recognizable by its straight stem and transom and a triangular lanteen sail.  The jalboot is the class of boat with which Emiraties compete in 22”, 43” and 60” divisions.  Although Dan belives that the sporting variants lack charm. 

Dan and I have been planning a long trip around the Musandam Peninsula, an Omani Governate to the north of Duabi.  Dan would sail in his Jalboot and me in my sea kayak meeting up in the evenings. Last Friday, Dan was planning to head out for a sail with some kids from his sailing club and invited us along. Kate and Ada were keen and it was a great opportunity for me to get out on the water in my kayak.

A Motley Crue

The forecast conditions were perfect.  Dan was planning to set off at 9am which meant that for my first 10km leg to the north, I would have slack water and a following 10kmn breeze which, with my little sail up, would push me along nicely.  By 11 am the southerly breeze was due to change to the south west which would then push my along the 13km sand barrier. I would then swing around the end of the sand bar near Ras al Khaimah and run back through the channel near the coast with a following tide and the sand bar sheltering me from the wind. In my mind, I would complete the 40 km trip in about 5 hours. Perfect.

Before I set off, I worked with the rest of the crew to rig the Zou Zou.  This is a big job as everything is held together with knots and lashings.  No modern innovations here and Dan had his hands full leading and tasking the crew.  "Sharp's the word, quick's the action" goes the theory according to Captain Jack Aubrey but, in this case, the actions were a little slow with Dan having to do much of the work.






The mast had to be lashed into place then the spar lashed to the mast and the sail tied to the spar.  The crew needed to rehearse changing the halyard so as to give clearance for the sail and spar as the the halyards are only on the up wind side of the mast.  This means that the Zou Zou can't tack it can only jibe. This was followed by the usual loading of the Yamaha out board engine, food, and water.  Once this was completed I followed Dan to our finish point where he parked his car then I shuttled him back to the marina before I returned to the finish point to launch.

Some kind of gazelle on the beach, maybe a sand gazelle but these are very rare.

Unfortunately I set off about 90 minutes later than I had anticipated and with sea kayaking, as in life, timing is everything. The wind from the south had shifted to the south west and the tide was now ebbing so the benefit of the breeze which was now to my aft quarter was diminished and barely offset the opposing tidal flow.  To make matters worse, to navigate the channels I had to run into the wind occasionally and get out of the boat to pull it over shallow sections between channels. I was late and I was slow and my plan had started to fall apart.

A sail and a fair wind

By the time I had covered the 10km to exit the Port, the temperature had peaked at 41 deg but I was able to utilise the breeze to run in a north westerly direction up the coast toward Ras Al Khaimah.  This was great fun with a following sea and breeze but it was hot. I couldn't feel the breeze so the buoyancy vest came off and went on the back deck.

As I was travelling I was doing my calculations.  Kate and I needed to leave for Dubai at 4pm and high tide was at 4pm. From the northern tip of the barrier back to my put in point was 18km.  This section would be with the flooding tide and into the wind. There was no way I was going to be able to cover the distance by 4pm. This created two problems.  The first was that after 4pm I would be paddling into both an ebbing tide and the wind and, more to the point, I would have an angry Kate waiting for me. I needed to come up with a solution.







Fortunately the sand barrier narrowed to about 20 meters wide about 4.5km from my turn around at the northern-most point. So it was simple. To save myself a little over an hour in the boat, I shouldered the kayak and carried it across the sand and relaunched on the other side. Unfortunately the flooding tide was slowing when I relaunched at around 2pm (the rule of 12ths regarding tidal flow with one twelfth of the volume in the first hour, two in the second, three in the third, three in the fourth, two in the fifth and one in the sixth).  I had missed the strongest two hours of the tide so I resigned myself to churning out a steady rhythm for the last 18km into the wind while trying to milk the tidal flow as much as I could.

A large flock of Black Cormorants that were startled by my kayak

After 3pm I had covered 8km and realised that I wasn't going to make my 4pm tidal and marital deadline.  There was nothing left to do but give Dan and his trusty Yamaha a call. Before too long the Zou Zou appeared with the crew lazing on the deck.  We quickly tied the kayak to the stern and I jumped aboard for the run back to the put in point.

I don't think that Captain Jack Aubrey would approve of the crew sleeping on watch

Enjoying a medicinal Baltika after over 4 hours of work in the sun.  

Although the Plan fell apart, I was able to paddle through the heat of the day which was good for my confidence and I still managed to cover a little over 29 km in four hours and 15 min. Not a bad day's work.

Back by 4pm and a happy Kate!