Day 97: Sea Day - Passing The Arabian Peninsula

 

We're now on a long four-day sea leg from Dubai to the Seychelles. On the first day and a half, we cleared the Gulf of Oman and entered the Arabian Sea, heading almost due south towards the Seychelles Islands. We're currently 200 miles off the coast of Oman, and if you went about 300 miles due east, you'd end up in Yemen.

 All these places share the massive Arabian Peninsula, which encompasses Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman, Yemen, Bahrain, Qatar, and Kuwait, with a bit of Jordan and Iraq thrown in for good measure. It's basically 1.2 million square miles, which is the same size as India! A good chunk of that is inhospitable desert and many harsh environments.

The area has rich historical importance, as it's the birthplace of Islam and the site of many of the world's oldest civilizations. With the Red Sea on the east and the Persian Gulf on the western side, it's been a center of trade (at least on the coasts) for thousands of years. Ancient cities like Mecca, Petra, and Medina dot the landscape, as do relative newcomers like Dubai and Abu Dhabi. 





I've found it to be a curious mix of landscapes. I was surprised by the sheer (!) number of cliffs and beaches, as I was expecting nothing but desert. In the southwest, there are some huge mountain ranges. Geologically, the peninsula formed by the rifting of the Red Sea about 40 million years ago. Most of the peninsula is a plateau of more than 2500 feet in elevation, extending from the mountains in the southwest to the Persian Gulf in the east. 

Most of the peninsula is unsuited for agriculture, making irrigation and reclaiming land essential to create fertile ground for crops. So, it is a good job that there is oil around. The first major oil discovery was at Dammam Well #7 in 1938. This was triggered by three events. First, trace amounts of oil were found in Persia back in 1908, causing geologists to get curious. Second, World War 1 accelerated the race to discover new oil reserves, and third, believe it or not, the Great Depression. It caused the number of pilgrimages to drop dramatically, impacting trade and religious tourism, so the kingdoms turned to other sources. 

The rest, as they say, is history.

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