Tuesday,  April 23, 2024

We’ve sailed more than 24,674 nautical miles since Ft. Lauderdale in January! Passing through the Strait of Hormuz which separates Indian Ocean from the Persian Gulf was uneventful.

Sir Bani Yas is a large natural and man-made island in the UAE and is located in the Persian Gulf, approximately 170 kilometers southwest of Abu Dhabi. The island is home to the Arabian Wildlife Park, a vast nature reserve spanning over 4,100 hectares (a hectare = 2.46 acres). It was established by the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the founding father of the UAE, as a sanctuary for Arabian wildlife species and some critters imported from afar.

The park is home to over 10,000 mostly free-roaming animals, including Arabian oryx, gazelles, giraffes, ostriches, and cheetahs. It is one of the few places where visitors can see these species in their natural habitat. Sir Bani Yas Island is renowned for its successful conservation programs aimed at protecting and preserving endangered species. It has played a significant role in the conservation of the Arabian oryx, which was once extinct in the wild but has been successfully reintroduced to its natural habitat on the island.

With no human residents, the island has been created to attract cruise ships and other tourists — a specially designed venue was the place for a beach BBQ and water sports like swimming, snorkeling, kayaks and we dipped and sipped frozen pina coladas by the clear water on a sandy man-made beach, with a lovely ship in the background.