Another Sharjah Shipwreck

Cometh the storm, cometh the shipwreck. It's happened almost every year for a few years now, although we missed out last year. It seems like every time there's a decent storm around here, some poor mug ends up beached on the sandy Sharjah or Ajman corniches. I don't know what it is that attracts them to this particular stretch of sand, but it does.

They're currently digging up the beach along Sharjah's corniche, installing what looks like a drainage system. Absent any explanation whatsoever, we can only conjecture it's to support further hotel development (Boo!) on what is a much-loved stretch of public beach used every weekend by thousands - unless they're going to expand the corniche road, known locally as Muntaza Road. We can only hope they're going to put the beach back neatly the way they found it.

There was absolute chaos on Friday night as a combination of roadworks and rubberneckers who'd heard there was a beached ship to stare at brought traffic to a standstill on the beach road and all the roads that feed into it. The police were trying to impose some sort of order on everything, with the wind still doing a pretty good howling impersonation and the sea still dangerous. Earlier in the day, the wind was so strong out to sea, you could lean back into it and not fall over.

The name of the beached boat looked like 'Hira', which would make it an 867 tonne offshore supply/anchor vessel sailing under a St Kitts and Nevis flag, although this is by no means certain - there's also a Turkish Hira and an Indian one, neither of which look anything like this one. Another time I read it as 'Hide' but couldn't find anything under that moniker. It's firmly stucked in the sand in the shallows a hundred yards or so away from the beach proper. There's nothing about it in the news, which is odd as The National and Gulf News have both made much of past beachings.

Anyway, by Saturday pretty much everyone had got over it and the crowds had thinned. It's still out there, presumably waiting for a high tide, a tow or Godot. You can imagine the poor captain calling the owner: 'Hi boss. I've got got good news and I've got bad news.'

Sea Blue - All Washed Up

Meet the good ship Sea Blue, a pretty little boat - or general cargo vessel to cogniscenti. Last week we had high winds and choppy seas which seems these days to lead to the inevitable beached boat. She's laid up on the beach on Ajman Corniche, beached as beached can be. Perhaps luckily, she seems to have missed the rocky groyne just up from her beaching site.

She's something of a mongrel - built in 1974 in a Danish shipyard, sailing under a Korean flag with her home port recorded as Wontan but owned by a Sharjah company - Al Sadiq Ship Management, she was originally called the Arnarfell. I think Sea Blue is perhaps a tad more poetic sounding, no?

More about her here.