Three days holiday for Eid means three days of exploring Qatar for us. Many people have gone away, but we thought we would take the opportunity to see a few more places. Today we went up to the far end of the island to Shamal, then went on to Ras al Shindwee which is the beach area nearby. We found this beach, completely deserted except for some young Qatari men who had got their Four wheel drive stuck in some soft sand on the other side of these rocks. We offered our assistance to try to get them out, but after handshakes and smiles all round they pointed to their cell phones as help was already on the way! So we went off exploring the beach for a while. There were some large birds on the salt lake where the boys were stuck, but once their friends had arrived, the revving of engines soon sent the birds on their way.

A little further up the coast were some more mangroves with the fruits turning yellow now.

This is the closest to a dinosaur we have seen in Qatar! Quite an interesting rock formation. There were signs in the area to make sure dogs were on a leash and we did not disturb the turtles. We saw no signs of sea turtles but presume we weren't looking in the right places or probably the right time of year. We will have to do some research to find out more about that.

Along this whole area of the coast were many abandoned ancient villages. Mostly they were fishing villages, some were pearl fishing villages. No sign of pearls on the beach unfortunately! This was an interesting shot Derek took with the beach umbrella perfectly framed in the window of the old house. I read in the paper just the other day that there has been quite an effort to put up a number of these umbrellas on the beaches up and down the coasts and to clean up the garbage washed up with the tide. The garbage is mostly plastic water bottles and plastic shopping bags. I really hope they continue with this as the beaches that have been cared for are really beautiful and the water is so clear. We had quite an eventful ending to the day which I will continue tomorrow.