Fishing at Starbucks

February 19, 2008

Photo by author

Sitting at Starbucks on a Muscat beach and watching the fishermen getting their nets ready on the beach just across the street, sums up the duality that is Oman. Listening to light jazz, sipping one of the two-dozen choices of coffee blends, whilst 50m from me the air is filled with the excited screams of the ever-hopeful seagulls and a team of fishermen running seemingly aimlessly but somehow coordinated and accomplishing the magic trick of disentangling, then spreading out a fine at least a 100m long green net, dotted in intervals with cork floats.

Two ancient red Jeeps – working ancestors of today’s luxurious Toyota Landcruisers – are part of the team. Nearly as agile but slightly more powerful, they assist by spreading and pulling the net in a synchronized driving dance, getting deeper into the oncoming waves before gracefully avoiding the net and retreating back onto the beach. One of the drivers off to fetch the slim long fishing boat, dragging it at first toward the water’s edge, then moving around and nudging it nose first into the waves.

Young men all the while keep running to and fro holding various parts of the net, waving instructions to the skilled drivers of the jeeps and shouting at each other, laughter and frantic, yet enjoyable activity buzzes in the air.

After an hour or so, my coffee mostly finished, the rest gone cold, and the seagulls settled in the distance, more quiet but still alert and hopeful, the fishing crew stands in the boat, pulling the net in slowly and precariously arranging it such that it virtually fills the shallow boat, but no doubt in a manner that it can be thrown overboard with a couple of simple movements.

Question is, how would the boat manage to bring the hopefully full net back onto the shore? Drag it behind and then enlist the help of the faithful Jeeps again? I suppose I will have to make another date with Starbucks at a different time of day, hoping to catch the next installment of the fishing saga.

About the author: Ulrike Lemmin-Woolfrey is a freelance travel and lifestyle writer, based in Dubai, after so far having lived in five countries on two continents, and currently eyeing another move.