Fujairah: Fishing Capital of the United Arab Emirates

Martin James, international salt and freshwater angler, consultant, broadcaster and writer believes that Fujairah is the fishing capital of the United Arab Emirates and ‘a perfect oasis’ for a holiday.

He writes about the various reasons as to why UAE is a top tourist destination. About the eastern state he writes:

“Fujairah with its mountains and ocean has provided this small Emirates State with an unparallel advantage. It boasts some beautiful scenery, a fact, which is fast reaching the eyes and ears of the world’s tourism industry.”

Martin James says, “Everyman in Fujairah is a fisherman at heart, the sea is in his blood.” To read more about the type of fish one is likely to catch in the Fujairah waters and how to go about it, click on this link:

Martin James, It’s Fun…Fishing in Fujairah

Image: Sports fish caught (and released) in Fujairah waters. One of the many fish photos off Martin’s web site.

Two Dirham Shopping in Fujairah

The USA has its Dollar Stores.
Canada has its Loonie and Toonie stores (Canadian nicknames for $1 and $2 coins).
The UK has its Pound Shops
In NZ and Oz they have their Two Buck shops.
Saudi Arabia has its 2 Riyal shops.
India has its 49-99 shops.

You can read all the names used by different countries at the Variety Store web site, which refers to ‘price-point’ retailers that sell inexpensive items such as cleaning supplies, toys and sweets. Unfortunately, over the years as inflation bites they have to raise their prices and they usually do not change their name!

Not to be outdone the United Arab Emirates has joined the Variety Store chain with the establishment of the ‘Two Dirham Center’. I don’t know whether there are others throughout the UAE but this one pictured, is still under construction in the Anajaimat suburb of Fujairah (near the Avenue Shop and the Giant Supermarket).

Geoff Pound

Image: The new ‘Two Dirham Center’.

Car Cleaning Costs in the UAE

Further to the recent Fujairah Food Shopping List, there are one or two other shopping costs that might be good to mention.

While the roads are of a good standard in the UAE, there is lots of dust that blows around, resulting in the need for your car to be cleaned regularly.

The modern service stations have automatic car washing facilities, which I have not had any experience of in the UAE. There are other, more sophisticated places where you can give your car an additional paint-cutting or waxing service.

There are many car wash and polishing facilities where you can get your car cleaned by hand.

Pictured in the photo is Alam from Chittagong, Bangladesh. He and his team do an excellent job at our local car cleaners in Faseel, Fujairah. They work from 9.00am to 11.00pm every day of the week for not much money.

Admittedly, my car is small, but the cost of getting it cleaned inside and outside, with shampooing, vacuuming, polishing, new paper mats and the tyres blackened is only Dh15.00. Another car wash outlet that opened up less than a kilometer away (towards the beach) was charging only Dh10 but they have recently gone out of business. It would be interesting to compare Fujairah prices with other centres around the UAE.

Geoff Pound

Image: Clean car, Alam and the Hani Cars Polishing Business, Faseel, Fujairah.

Warning for Swimmers at Fujairah

People contemplating a swim after sunset at UAE beaches have been warned. Special warnings were issued about the east coast beaches of Fujairah.

For further details read:
Swimmers are warned against venturing out to sea at night, Gulf News, 1 April 2007.

Fujairah’s ‘Breathtaking Coastline’ is often Trashed

This guy (and his mate in the tractor) at the Fujairah Municipality do a magnificent job cleaning up the beaches every day with this hungry vacuum cleaner and sand sifter.

But give a couple of hours and the waves will belch onto the beach all their foreign bodies—sandals, bottles, packets, glass, rope, polystyrene plates, leftovers from the picnic—and the beach soon becomes a shambles.

Visitors to Fujairah will be attracted when they read web sites like UAE Interact and this posting entitled, ‘U.A.E. Culture and Heritage: Fujairah’:

“Fujairah, with a breathtaking coastline of more than 90km, is the only emirate situated entirely along the Gulf of Oman.….”

“Fujairah is a place of considerable natural beauty where jagged mountains and valleys sweep down to the settled palm-fringed coastal plain.”

It sounds idyllic but it doesn’t always square with the beach I walk every day.

It is a breathtaking coastline but visitors will want their money back if we don’t put our rubbish in the bins and stop heaving it out of cars and boats.

Geoff Pound

Image: Fujairah Municipality Beach Cleaner and the relentless rubbish.

Longing for a Magrudy's Bookshop In Fujairah

I adore bookshops. Even though I buy books online, the smell and touch of a book are a sensual experience that a virtual bookshop cannot provide.

I identify with that character in a novel who made lengthy trips to her local bookshop to do some reading and she kept her place by using a strand of her hair as a bookmark.

When my wife and I are visiting cities like Florence, we hit the galleries and museums hard in the morning and then love to spend an hour or three in a bookshop, resting the legs and filling up our emotional tanks.

You can imagine how my heart leapt the other day when I was passed by a Magrudy’s van on my way home to Fujairah from the Dubai International airport. My immediate thought was, “A Magrudy’s Bookshop is coming out east!”

When the van stopped at the Friday Market I pulled over and I asked the guys if they were making plans for a new bookshop in Fujairah. Unfortunately for me, Ricky and Shinor were heading off to a book fair in a Fujairah school but I later called the Magrudy’s headquarters to pop my question.

Jonathan MacDonald, Chief of Franchising and Marketing, explained that Magrudy’s was one of the oldest bookshops in the region and that the business was developing rapidly. The new Abu Dhabi shop is due to open at the end of May this year and the biggest of their shops—in Festival City—will bring their U.A.E. tally to eight.

Jonathan said he gets lots of calls from people at Ras al Khaimah and Al Ain asking for a local bookshop. He said after undertaking some research he had no immediate plans for a shop in Fujairah but “it is on his radar.”

I gave Jonathan MacDonald these reasons for bringing an east coast Magrudy’s from the radar to reality:

* There is a booming hotel business with a flourishing tourist population along the east coast.

* The new freeway/motorway will lessen the travel time considerably between Dubai and Fujairah, thus causing droves of frazzled people who are tired of the smog and the clogged roads to leave the big smoke and base themselves in the relative calm of Fujairah.

* The recently announced Creativity City at the doorway of Fujairah must surely connect with books and education.

* The soon to be established Safeer Mall on the Fujairah coastline with its 100 shops, 5 anchor stores and 13 feeding and drinking holes will be the ideal spot for Magrudy’s or its competitor.

In the meantime, some Magrudy’s books within a major Fujairah supermarket, à la Spinney’s in Dubai, will be a useful way to test the market and build a presence.

If you’d like to write to Jonathan and give him another reason why he should be developing the market out east you can send him a letter via the Contact link on the recently renovated Magrudy’s web site.

Geoff Pound

Image: Magrudy’s staff members Ricky and Shinor on their way out east for an important book fair.

Fujairah’s Creative Road Safety Initiative

Congratulations to the Fujairah Municipality and the Traffic Safety campaigners for giving this creative lead—mangled cars at most of the Fujairah roundabouts this week.

The cars placed within the roundabout (like the one pictured), give a more memorable statement than the ones outside, that appear as a sideshow.

Well done.

Geoff Pound

Image: Car not going anywhere at the Fujairah Tower roundabout.

More Hotel Beds for Fujairah

While the hotel construction business is booming north of the Fujairah township the walls have gone up around the construction site for this five star hotel (ground and eight floors).

It will be located on Fujairah’s corniche, a kilometre south of the Hilton Hotel.

More beds. More tourists for Fujairah.

Geoff Pound

Image: Promotional picture from the site.

World Billiard Champs Might Be Potting Holes

You might be forgiven for thinking this is a photo of a crater on the surface of the moon.

This is a picture of one of the many craters on the first roundabout you will encounter when you are approaching Fujairah from Dubai.

The road maintenance team must have a lot of work on to be leaving dangerous cavities of this magnitude unfilled. It is a pity that the welcome roundabout has not been repaired in time for all the visitors coming to Fujairah for the Eight-Ball Pool World Championship commencing tonight.

Or maybe the large holes in the road are left to symbolize the pockets on the pool table and thus make the billiards enthusiasts feel more at home.

Image: Pot hole on the entrance roundabout. Welcome to Fujairah.

Why I Am Writing

Why I Am Writing Now
An experienced ex-pat who was hanging up his business boots in Bangladesh and conducting an orientation with his successor said to the newcomer:

“You will see a lot of things in this country that will surprise and horrify you but my advice to you is to keep your mouth closed for six months. By that time I will be long gone so I won’t have to fix any damage you have created. And by that time you will possibly have developed some tolerance, perspective and some wise understanding of your new situation.”

Having arrived in the United Arab Emirates at the beginning of 2006 my self-imposed silence is long over. Sometimes I see things that surprise and anger me about life in the UAE but by and large I am content and keen to write as a disciplined exploration of life in this fascinating country. I am not writing as an expert but as one who is eager to understand the culture and developing identity of where I live.

Why I Write About Fujairah and the East Coast
When I watch the television and read the newspapers I yearn for information about where I live and comment from its residents. But viewers and readers have to look hard to find items and articles that have a Fujairah focus. This week’s Gulf News has the following references:
* A passing comment on two Fujairah tennis players (27/2/07)
* Fujairah’s Buseirah Dam noted as the source of Dibba Pure Natural Mineral Water (27/2/07)
* Mention of the Fujairah Port in article on DP’s 17% growth (26/2/07)
* Fujairah’s football team in bottom place (26/2/07)
* Surprising win by Fujairah’s football team over Al Nasr (24/2/07)

The Khaleej Times doesn’t improve the Fujairah news famine, covering in this last week some of the above stories but also including references to the inclusion of Fujairah on the maiden voyage of a cruise ship, a report on two forthcoming sports contests (tennis and billiards) and a focused article on alarming price hikes by Fujairah bakeries.

UAE blog writers appear to be active but the focus of most UAE sites is on Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Al Ain.

I am starved of news and I enjoy reading the local monthly mag, the Fujairah Observer, because it is about my place and written about the people in this part of the country.

I am not seeking to be a journalist and make this blog site into an online newspaper but if it can help generate some interest, some exchange of ideas and some action it will have served its purpose.

Someone, learning about my intended blog site and Fujairah focus said, “Will you have enough to write on? Does anything happen in Fujairah?” Small towns have always experienced a rivalry with the major cities. It is part of the rural/city dichotomy. ‘Can anything good come out of’… Fujairah? I am sure it has and I am sure it will.

Why I Write
I resonate with novelist, Joan Didion, when she says in her article, Why I Write: “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.”

I resonate with that thought and hope that through this site and the sharing of thoughts it will lead to some similar discoveries.

Geoff Pound

Image: Coffee Pot at the Faseel Roundabout.