Al Wahtba dunes

It was a lazy Saturday afternoon when the idea to find this place drove away the stupor I had. The clock factually declared that there was barely three hours of skin-complimenting golden sunlight and the clear skies promised at least an hour or so of blue light shooting. I had no time to waste. Studying the maps in the book and entering the coordinates, my GPS figured it would take 46 minutes to get to my destination. 

The 2016 edition of the UAE explorer off road book features an eye-catching cover picture of an out-

of-this-world landscape that seemingly invites the viewer to go out and explore what majestic treasures the desert has to offer. I just knew I had to go to that place.  An artwork in progress, this barren sea of sand littered with icebergs of rocks that are continuously shaped by mother nature's breath of seasonal winds is surprisingly not that far away from the city. The stunningly captivating masterpiece is centuries old and still far from complete. 

The thought of going to this place may be intimidating to some car drivers since it looks so remote and
the fact that it is in the cover of an off road book adds to the impression that a 4x4 is needed to get there. Reality is, this place is actually accessible to sedans. If fact, I was using my Altima when I first visited this dunes. Located just a few hundred meters from the road, the drive to this area actually is not that bad. 

Photography was the first reason for me to find this place. after a few visits I soon realized that this was a good camping site. Google maps actually marks this as a camp site. Since then, this became my favorite destination for a quick overnight camp or just to go celebrate rest days on Friday sunsets.

These natural formations are delicate works of art. They may withstand baking under the sun, strong winds, sand storms and all the elements but they easily crumble and even walking over these may cause a frack or even break them.  A sad observation I had was that some folks think that these formations are actual rocks and and they drive their rigs over the "rocks". Others  actually break the smaller formations by sitting on them for pictures. 

I was happy to find out during a 2019 visit that the trash left by campers and visitors was actually removed from the area. It is our responsibility to keep places like this clean by taking out rubbish materials with us after enjoying the place.

 

My last visit to the dunes was on my traditional new year's solo camp to welcome 2020. As seen in the video below, I got stuck on the soft sand. Was that an omen of what has to come this year? 

Shuweihat Island

 

It has been five months now since "lock down" has been implemented due the the COVID situation. Although this situation has prevented me from traveling freely, I am thankful that measures to promote our safety from infection has been in place. As  "stay at home" rules slowly ease up and a new "normal" is slowly being implemented, I just can't help but dream of the best road trips I have had in the UAE. I will be revisiting most of them when leisure road trips will be safe again. 

Topping my list of all-time favorite outdoor destinations in the UAE  would be Suhweihat Island. This

Instagram-candy island is located around 270 kilometres west of the capital. The accessibility of the island heavily contributes to the melancholic feeling when adventuring alone, which I find amusing. This rock island is actually reachable by a land bridge that adds to the dramatic approach to what arguably is the most scenic spots on the country's coastlines. Technically being a military base, most of the beaches are fenced off to the public but that does not serve as a turn off to the wandering ones since the accessible areas still make up more than enough for the 2.5 hour drive from the big city. 

Lined with cliffs and beaches, the coastline of this island paradise can be described with a thousand adjectives of praise. I would say, it is like Arizona's Antelope Canyon had a love child with the Maldives. The beauty of the island is highlighted by the pastel colors of the sands, rocks and the clear ocean that emits ever changing hues as the sun traces it's path across the Arabian sky. With the island being barely 2 kilometres wide, photographers can easily move about, taking full advantage of sunrise and sunset landscapes. 

In one of our opportunities of camping overnight a few years back, we have observed that a lot of 

rubbish is left by campers. It is a sad fact that humans leave an ugly footprint in natures masterpieces. Still, a silver lining is that there are more of those campers who are responsible enough to clean up after camp break.

My favorite activity in the island is exploring the cliffs and beaches. It is a unique experience to see the different faces of the beaches within a few hundred meters of walking and "discovering" caves along the cliffs. 

Public access to the island have changed quite a number of times in the recent year. If you plan to visit, doing due diligence of checking online may be a good idea. 

April's low budget photowalk

The 30 days of April will not pass without a photowalk. Since funds were running low, Macko and I decided to walk all the way to Sharjah's Gold souks just to ease our photography craving. Since the sun was still too bright and we had night shots in mind, we decided to check out the souk.

In the Souk, we found a couple of stalls that got my attention because of what they were selling: camera accessories and lenses and a line of multitools and knives produced by the Leatherman Tool Group- my two addictions in one shop! I was thankfull I had no cash or else, it would have been harder to practice temperance to the limit.

Night has fallen when we started shooting. Light trails and ghost-like figures of people accented our frames. It was like a show-and-tell kind of shoot and whoever invented slow shutter speeds and sturdy Velbon sherpa tripods should have some credit for our output. With that said, I think our tripods deserve some trivia in this page. Macko uses a Velbon Sherpa 200R And I got a Velbon Sherpa 600R. Why Velbon? It is cheaper than the Monfrottos (yeah, right!) The name comes from the fact that in Japanese the r and l sound is actually the same. So the VEL in Velbon is partially from the Japanese pronunciation of VERy and the French word BON (which means good). These two words were combined as a new word and a new trademark: VELBON. It’s short for VERY GOOD! (taken from their Official site)

We walked to get different angles and subjects.

On the east side of the Souk stands a trio of pencil-like towers. I remember shooting a wedding in one of the fine-dining restaurants here last December.

It was getting late and we thought it was time to separate ways. I then decided to walk home along the Corniche to take more shots.

It was 11 pm when I got home. time to call it a night. Going over this month's only photowalk expense: a can of ice-cold Dr. Pepper- aed 3.95. Not bad at all.