Fireworks???

Tonight GK and I scurried off down to the creek in pursuit of these elusive fireworks!!

Were we rewarded for our efforts....not at all! It seems, when enquiring of the local population on the dhow wharfage, the winds were contrary! They were very cold blustery, so fireworks could not be part of the shopping festival celebrations!! because they would be blown all over the city!!

So we did the next best thing and blipped some of the Dinner Cuise Dhows plying slowly up and down this famous waterway! I captured the old and the new!

The one in the foreground was tied up to the bollard waiting to be loaded with tyres ready for its journey across the Indian ocean to faraway places like Mumbai or Karachi.

The small, brightly decorated one under its prow, is one of the Dinner Cruises on its way through to the mouth of the creek.

I did wonder where the name 'Dhow' came from and discovered a gem of a story!

Supposedly a British sailor asked a local for the name of ‘that over there’, pointing at a boat with a lit lantern, and was told dhow, one of the Arabic words for a lamp or light. The Arab thought the sailor was asking about the most obvious thing to be seen in the dark, which was the lamp.

(The truth is, its the Swahili word for boat.....but who doesn't enjoy a little embelishment!)

Happy Blipping Everyone