In Olive Leaf Tea, Book 3 in my New Life in Andalusia series, we travel between Andalusia and the Middle East, trying to decide whether the idea of living among the olive groves is sustainable or whether we need to reconsider our path and return to the Gulf. To celebrate the new release, I’m sharing here a chapter from Olive Leaf Tea which documents Robert’s misfortunes at fishing.

Fishing in Mazirah

Once we were both back on shore, we sat silently on the sand in the shade of the car, contemplating what we had just been through.

‘Let’s go back to town and find a hotel or somewhere to sleep,’ I suggested.

When the wind ripped apart our tent, we had considered sleeping in the back of the SUV. But now, suffering from a mild dose of heat stroke and exhausted by the emotions that a near-death experience brings, I just wanted to lie down on a mattress in a dark room. Robert silently agreed, and we drove north to the town. On the outskirts of Hilf, we stopped at the petrol station, and Robert got out to ask where we might be able to find a place to stay. While Oman is relatively liberal, it would not have been appropriate for a woman to approach and talk with a strange man in public. I watched from the passenger window as Robert spoke to one of the customers at the petrol station. The man was dressed in a neat brown dishdasha, and on his head was a type of colourful and intricately decorated scarf wrapped like a turban. With the usual Omani hospitality, the man insisted on taking us to the island’s only hotel. We followed him through a couple of streets, and there, at the end of town, tucked between the town’s desalination plant and the airbase, was a small, lonely hotel.

We said goodbye to our impromptu guide and walked into the reception office. The aroma of burnt frankincense was so dense in the air that I could taste it. Several small charcoal incense burners were placed in various corners of the reception and near the staircase to the rooms, and clouds of incense billowed across the tiled reception area. It was perhaps for the best because we did not smell too fresh ourselves after spending a night in a tent and a day on the beach. Once we had ascended a narrow flight of stairs to our room, it became apparent why the young Omani receptionist was fumigating the place with al-luban or frankincense. The hotel was permeated with the mouldy smell that many a seaside hotel is blessed with, especially if it is not ventilated properly. It was not a pleasant odour, but we tolerated it out of necessity. The bathroom was basic. It had a squat-down toilet and a shower inhabited by the customary family of shiny cockroaches, who, on sensing our intrusion into their natural domain, scrambled frantically to collect their belongings and scuttle off to hide in the shower drain. The bed was adorned with a thick, coarse woollen blanket, which was a peculiar choice of hotel bedding since it was 30 degrees Celsius, or 86 Fahrenheit, outside. With the heat and humidity swirling around us, inside and out, I struggled to imagine who on earth would want to wrap themselves in a thick blanket. Another problem with the blanket was that it had no cover, thus suggesting to me that it had been in direct contact with the previous guests’ sweaty skin. Like a CSI detective collecting samples from a crime scene, I picked up the offending item between my thumb and index finger and placed it on a jauntily tilted shelf inside a musty wardrobe. I gently closed the door on ‘Exhibit A’. 

If we had arrived at this hotel at the beginning of our trip, I would have immediately turned around and looked for other options. But, since we were exhausted from our ocean adventure earlier that morning, we needed to rest in a dark room, away from the scorching sun and aeonian wind. After a short siesta, we turned the room into a campsite. With our camping gear set out all around the room, we settled in as if we were occupying a tent on the beach, just minus the elements or the view. Since the hotel was situated right on the beach, one would expect great sea views. But the genius architect who designed this sorry establishment had located the entrance door to each room facing the sea. As a result, the bedroom windows overlooked the car park, a side wall of the desalination plant, and the main road. The constant thrum of the plant’s massive diesel engines did not contribute positively to the general ambience. After a non-exotic meal of Chinese noodles cooked on a portable gas stove, we spent a few fruitful hours discussing the various failings of the hotel and how they could be fixed. But after a while, our cramped, putrid-smelling, cockroach-infested cell began to suffocate us. We had had enough and so headed back to the beach for a barbecue and drinks.

On the way there, we purchased some meat and vegetables for the evening meal. It was a relief to be back next to the sea. Again, we were sitting on clean sand and could breathe the air without gagging. The moon had not yet risen, and the beach was pitch black. In the distance, I saw a lonely wavering light heading towards us. 

‘What’s that?’ I asked. 

‘A boat?’

Several fishing dinghies were out, each with a small light in front to guide them.

‘No, it’s not on the water. It’s moving along the shore,’ I pointed at the light moving in our direction.

‘I think it’s a motorbike,’ Robert hesitated.

And indeed, we soon heard the purring of a small-capacity motor, and a tall Omani man arrived before us, a dignified visitor to our temporary set-up of two well-used camping chairs, a battered cool box, and a portable barbecue. From the handles of his motorbike hung two large fish.

‘Good evening,’ the man spoke English with a slightly-forced British accent. ‘I saw the fire from my house,’ he pointed into the darkness from whence he had emerged. ‘And I thought that you might enjoy some fish.’

He unhooked the fish from the handlebar and showed it to us. They were beautiful specimens and clearly very fresh. I felt terrible because we had already eaten and didn’t have a proper fridge to store these very large fish. It was, in fact, far too much food for two people to eat in one sitting. I explained all this to the stranger. He did not seem particularly bothered by our refusal of his generous offer since there was no change in his friendly demeanour. He put the fish away, and we continued to chat amicably.

‘What kind of fish is it?’ Robert asked. 

‘It’s kingfish,’ the man explained. ‘There’s a great deal of kingfish and tuna in these waters.’

Robert, a very keen but extremely unlucky fisherman, was all ears. We didn’t mention to Ali, for that was his name, that we had spent the first day on the island sitting on the rocks with rods in the water and dreaming of pulling out a fish.

There were many lovely coves around the island with rock formations, some extending far into the ocean. The island’s location and the fact that we saw an abundance of fish while snorkelling off the beach led us to believe we were in an angler’s paradise. I was confident that we would eat fresh fish from the sea daily. But hours spent standing and crouching on the sharp rocks had not yielded any results. False alarms would be triggered line after line. After jerking hard on the line, we would inevitably discover that, instead of striking a fish, the hook had attached itself to the bottom of the ocean. The waves crashing against the rocks were too strong and prevented us from diving down to salvage our hooks. We had to cut them off the line and attach a new one.

But this was not the first time we had failed to reel in any fish. Given his meagre record, Robert’s perseverance at fishing was puzzling. For a large number of hours and locations where he had tried fishing in the past, I could count his catch on the fingers of one hand. For me, the indomitable fisherman’s loyal companion, it seemed like a pointless endeavour. Far too many afternoons of our life had been idled away at the side of a Swedish lake and on the banks of various rivers and canals in the Netherlands. Only once, while camping by a fjord in Norway, did he get lucky. It was an extremely secluded spot not far from Nordkapp. On this particular fishing expedition, each time Robert cast his line, it would start pulling against him almost immediately, and in minutes he would be holding a beautiful sea cod in his hand. Within half an hour, we had caught enough for a generous fish supper and the next day’s breakfast. Even though the good fortune that we had experienced while fishing in the pristine Norwegian waters eventually turned out to be quite elusive and impossible to emulate, it hadn’t stopped Robert from accumulating more and more elaborate fishing equipment; further motivating him to angle each time he saw a large body of water.

‘If you like fishing, I can organise a fishing trip for you,’ Ali suggested. ‘You can charter my boat, and I’ll bring two crew to assist us.’

This sounded fantastic. We agreed on the price and discussed some more details about the trip. Ali was going to collect us the following day with his boat from the beach outside our hotel. We parted ways. He had to arrange the impromptu fishing trip for two clueless tourists, and we had to get some sleep before an early morning rise.

The sky was still a cool pink-orange, and the sun had not yet risen when we emerged from our room. I was carrying a canvas bag with copious supplies of sunblock cream, caps, sun hats, sunglasses, and potable water for the boat trip. Robert was holding on to his faithful fishing box and foldable rod. From the beach, we could see the little harbour where the car ferries and bigger fishing boats would be moored. There weren’t any fancy speedboats or luxury yachts in sight. The harbour contained only industrial vessels, and many were in quite a dilapidated state, covered in rust and inhabited by generations of seagulls. An old-fashioned wooden dhow lay somewhat forlornly on its side at the entrance to the harbour. While we discussed the state of the boats, Ali arrived, piloting a small fibreglass fishing dinghy.

We used a short rickety pier to embark on his humble vessel. For some reason, he ceremoniously handed us two pairs of brand-new white cotton gloves. While he confidently told us about his best fishing location and explained what type of fish we were after, his two Omani companions, who appeared to be in their late twenties, arrived. They were carrying a large Styrofoam box filled with ice to store all the fish we would catch. They had also very thoughtfully brought along several shopping bags of bottled water and juice for everyone to drink.

While the dishdasha, a long ankle-length robe with long sleeves, is the customary attire of Omani men, it’s neither comfortable nor practical when partaking in the physical labour of any kind, especially fishing. Our crew wore white cotton shirts with short sleeves and open necks. The shirts were quite long and loose-fitting. The crew’s apparel was completed by pyjama-style trousers displaying various checked patterns and colours. Ali and one of his crew, Mansoor, wore traditional Omani caps, round and flat at the top. However, the third crew member Abdul Rahman sported a New York Yankees cap he had purchased while visiting his brother in Dubai. All of the men spoke perfect English and seemed strangely worldly and cosmopolitan. I found their demeanour and manners fascinating because they all hailed from a small, isolated fishing island with no direct road connection to the capital city of Oman, Muscat.

Masirah was very different to the fishing villages found along the coast of the mainland. There, children would often stare at me in bewilderment as if they were seeing a Western woman in jeans and a T-shirt for the first time in their lives. In some of the more remote villages, the inhabitants spoke dying languages, many of which had only a few hundred speakers left. The people of Masirah, to whom we chatted on the ferry and in the shops, were familiar with foreigners. They came across as sophisticated, well-spoken, and confident in themselves. I felt they’d feel at home whether they went to Dubai, New York, or London. Our fishing crew was the same. While Mansoor steered the boat and Ali stood alert on the prow, looking out for rocks and guiding Mansoor’s navigation, Abdul Rahman regaled us with stories of his time at Muscat University, where he had studied engineering.

We learned that none of the crew on our impromptu charter was a full-time fisherman. They just loved fishing. They did it on the weekends and in the evenings, if they had time, to get fresh fish for their families. But they all had jobs either at the RAFO air base or in the town of Hilf. As Abdul Rahman eloquently told us more about life on his home island, a dark thought crossed my mind. Have we been duped again? I wondered. I couldn’t believe that we had ventured out into the ocean with three strange men and were willing to pay them money for this escapade. But then, they all looked so sincere and honest. I could not tell if they were grifters or genuine people, so I decided to relax and enjoy my boat ride. While Robert was after his elusive fish, I merely wanted to be out on the open water for a few hours. At that time, we lived by the edge of the Empty Quarter in Al Ain, where the red dunes stretched as far as one could see. And so, the endless waves and the turquoise water constituted a welcome respite from the dry landscape of our home at the time.

Soon, Ali indicated to Mansoor that he had found a good fishing spot. They switched off the motor and started preparing the fishing gear. There was a definite mismatch between their fishing gear and ours. Robert’s fishing box had been bought in Sweden a few years earlier and contained an extensive collection of hooks, sinkers, snaps, and swivels. He also had a variety of silicon lures of various colours and sizes. While Robert unfolded and prepared his European-style fishing rod, Ali handed me a coil of transparent line wrapped around a circular piece of plastic. At the end of the line, he attached a hook and took a sliver of sardine flesh they had brought in a small plastic bag. He asked me to put on the gloves he had given me earlier. I was still quite puzzled about how to fish with this contraption, so I watched Mansoor and Abdul Rahman prepare similar systems for themselves and start fishing. They simply threw the line overboard and waited for the fish to take the bait.

I did the same and watched the men for clues on what to do next. While the four of us were sitting in our spots with lines in the water, Robert was still assembling his Swedish rod. From our past fishing trips, I knew that preparing the thin nylon line he uses was fiddly, and the tiny parts that had to go together could make the most patient of saints lose their composure. For this reason, I didn’t ask him any questions. The other men on the boat sensed that the Scandinavian rod might soon end up in the water and thus chose to focus on their own lines.

After just a few minutes, Abdul Rahman pulled in his line with a lovely hammour at the end. I was gobsmacked. Never in my life did I expect us to see a fish so quickly. But Abdul Rahman was not happy with the size of the fish. He thought it was too small and tossed it back into the briny blue. Soon our boat became a real-life version of Let’s Go Fishing!, a game I enjoyed as a child. From either side of the boat, the Omani men were eagerly reeling in fish, unhooking each one with a professional twist of the wrist, and then, based on its size, placing the fish into the Styrofoam container or releasing it back into the sea. Of course, the Omani men’s success attracted a flock of seagulls to our location. The gulls circled the boat and flew over our heads in anticipation of securing one of the fish that would be thrown overboard. 

At that moment, I felt a sudden pull, and as I wrapped the line back around the plastic wheel with my gloved hand, I was pleased to see a good-sized hammour emerge from the surface. I looked at Robert, who had just finished setting up his fishing rod. 

‘You should try this,’ I suggested since the Omani method seemed highly productive.

‘No. I want to use my rod.’

That’s fine. I thought while I attached a small piece of fresh squid to my hook and threw the line overboard.

Every few minutes, someone on the boat would bring up a fish. Everyone, that is, except Robert, who sat morosely with his hi-tech Scandinavian equipment, waiting for the fish to be tempted by a gaudy pink lump of silicon onto his hook.

‘Why don’t you try some real bait,’ Ali suggested a new approach.

Encouraged by Ali, Robert switched out the imitation silicon fish that fooled no one for a juicy piece of sardine. A difference between the local fishing technique and using a fishing rod was that Robert felt he had to cast his bait out from the boat. With the local contraption, the Omanis merely dropped their lines directly over the side of the boat. 

As Robert cast out, a crafty seagull chased the sardine at the end of the line and caught it mid-air. However, the hook became entangled in the poor bird’s wing. When I saw what had happened, I almost fainted. The distressed and unbalanced bird crash-landed onto the water, now paddling around and squawking like a demented beast. All the blood drained from Robert’s face as if he had downed the Ancient Mariner’s albatross. I realised he was as well-equipped to handle this avian-marine drama as I was. We sat in silence, wondering what we were supposed to do.

It was patently clear that we could not abandon the poor animal with the line wrapped around his wing. Even if we cut the line from the rod, the unfortunate creature would forever be left with a small hook stuck in its wing. It would be very cruel. But as a consequence of my severe fear of birds (acquired as a child when a giant rooster attacked me), I was not mentally prepared to hold an adult seagull in my arms with its sharp beak next to my face while someone removed the hook.

Fortunately for me, Oman was a traditional Muslim country, and the men on the boat didn’t even contemplate involving me, a mere woman, in the wildlife rescue that unfolded. The Omanis kept calm and gently pulled the gull to the side of the boat. It was, after all, still attached to Robert’s line. The bird stopped panicking once it was near us and yielded to Mansoor’s calm and matter-of-fact attitude. He slowly leaned over the boat’s edge to pull the bird up and held it on the plank that traversed our craft amidship. The two other crew members restricted the bird’s movement while Robert pulled the unfortunate hook out. It wasn’t a large hook, so the operation went smoothly and with little drama. As soon as we were done, the gull soared away, up into the deep blue sky, and, without looking back, towards the safety of the fishing harbour. Both parties had had the adventure of their lifetime, it seemed.

After his disastrous attempt at using the Swedish fishing rod, Robert abandoned it and used my handline. By then, I had caught two decent-sized fish, more than I had ever caught. I was happy sitting on the boat’s prow, enjoying the sea view. As I watched my hapless husband for another hour, I began to suspect that the sea gods had cursed him. Granted, he caught a lot of marine life during the remainder of the trip, but each time he pulled a creature of the deep up onboard, we were informed that what he had caught was either inedible or dangerous. While the other men on the boat pulled up grouper, kingfish, and mackerel, Robert’s fish were all relatives of Leviathan. Even Ali looked at some of the specimens that Robert caught with eyes wild in disbelief. They were all quickly thrown back into the ocean, with a short prayer muttered in Arabic to disperse the evil presence from our vessel.

But their heartfelt prayers didn’t dispel the bad omen that Robert had cast upon our trip because, in the next moment, all hell broke loose onboard. Even the previously calm and collected Monsoor began to scream and jump about. He was pointing at the two-foot moray eel that Robert had, with ignorant insouciance, reeled in on deck. The eel had firmly attached itself to the plank that went across the boat by twisting its body around it in muscular convulsive curls. It took me a few seconds to realise what the commotion was about. The three crewmen suddenly turned into a bomb disposal squad. Ali approached the eel as if it was some kind of a marine explosive device about to explode in our faces. He moved in slow motion and spoke gently in Arabic to the other men while keeping a fixed eye on the moray eel. His voice was as calm as if he were a yoga instructor during a particularly relaxing mindfulness session. Under his direction, they mercifully dispatched and removed the unwelcome passenger.

It was the first time I had seen a moray eel, and I was deeply unaware of its vices. The eels I am familiar with come from the Baltic Sea and are usually served smoked or as part of a delicious fish paste. The eel that had landed on our boat looked very attractive and not harmful at all. It was covered in hundreds of tiny spots that were quite becoming. Were we alone on the boat, there is no doubt that either Robert or I would have touched it as soon as it landed on deck. According to Ali, we would then have suffered excruciating pain and lost a copious number of red blood cells. We might even have had to be helicoptered to the hospital in Muscat. Reportedly, the moray eel inhabiting the seas around Masirah Island tends to attach itself to human skin and never let go.

In hindsight, some of the dangers posed by the moray eel might have been exaggerated by Monsoor. I assumed that making a living from the ocean and spending so much of their lives on the water, Omani children were warned never to touch the moray eel. As is always the case with such cautionary tales, they become somewhat embellished by our elders to ensure that no harm comes our way.    

After our encounter with the eel, we changed our fishing spot for good measure. Robert and the Omanis continued fishing for another hour, and then we made our way back to the shore. We disembarked, and Ali’s helpers heaved the Styrofoam box out from the deck floor. They opened it up with proud smiles on their faces. It was a great catch. We had kingfish, hammour, and a few other species I could not identify. There was enough fish in the container for a small fishmonger’s stand, and all the fish were of a good size and healthy-looking. As I leaned forward to select the few specimens that Robert and I had caught, there appeared to be a huge misunderstanding. Apparently, all the fish was for us. I looked at Ali in disbelief.

‘But we just need a few for the barbecue.’ I explained that we couldn’t take it all with us to Al Ain.

‘But it’s your fish’, Ali insisted.

‘What am I supposed to do with it?’ I said in a friendly tone. ‘We can’t eat it all, and we can’t keep it in the hotel room. Can you take it, please?’

After a few more minutes of going back and forth, the Omanis agreed to take the rest of the fish. They were, after all, incredibly honest and assumed that all of the fish they caught was for us since we had chartered the boat. We parted in good spirits. They had been paid in cash and had a load of fresh fish to take home, and we had had a fantastic day on a fishing boat. We went to the reception and asked if the hotel’s chef could clean the fish for us. That evening, we enjoyed some delicious fresh fish on our portable barbecue on the beach. These were good times. We were young and had very little to worry about. It felt like new experiences were waiting for us around every corner.

As I sat contemplating on the beach in Sur years later, I recalled these memories of our past life, unsure whether I should go for a swim or remain in safety on the sand. Why did we leave this life of seemingly constant adventure and move to Andalusia, where, for the last four years, we had been under constant financial and emotional pressure? When we left the Middle East in 2014, I had very little to show for my life. We had a shipping container full of things and some memories of our sometimes bizarre escapades, but not much more. Nothing of substance, one might say. If we had died out there on that Masirah rock by either starving to death or by being eaten by a shark, what would our obituaries read?

To commemorate a foolish couple

Who, whilst camping, had some trouble.

They succumbed to a struggle.

But no light they saw at the end of the tunnel.

By a well-fed shark, their days were darkened;

A dirge to Masirah Island.

On our long journeys to Masirah Island, we would listen to a series of philosophy lectures that I had burned onto a collection of CDs. We enjoyed listening to the lecturer’s ideas and arguments repeatedly. Some of the philosophers, like Kant, I already knew well. Others, like Nietzsche, came in one ear and went out the other. Some, like Hegel, went over my head. But it was Jean-Paul Sartre, the philosopher whose ideas I associated with during my teenage years (mostly by wearing black outfits and being miserable), that stayed with me. When I contemplated his radical substantialism as an adult, I realised I had previously misunderstood his central message. I was responsible for making my own life into a fundamental project that would give rise to my essence. I didn’t think renovating a house was substantial enough to call it a fundamental life project.

There must be something for me, I thought. I can’t remain an empty shell.

I had to keep on looking.

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If you enjoyed this chapter from Olive Leaf Tea: Time to Settle, you can purchase the ebook or paperback on Amazon. The ebook is available for preorder and will download to your Kindle on the 1st of September 2023. The paperback is available worldwide.

Amazon universal link https://mybook.to/oliveleaftea

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You can read Sabina Ostrowska’s books on Kindle and as paperbacks. They are available in all Amazon markets and many other online bookshops, as well as free on Kindle Unlimited.

Amazon universal link to The Crinkle Crankle Wall https://bit.ly/CrinkleCrankle

Amazon universal link to A Hoopoe on the Nispero Tree https://bit.ly/A-Hoopoe

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