Our good friends from the MyUAE-Pro, a community organization for Malaysian professionals in UAE, organized an outing in a small private island off the emirate of Umm Al Quain (UAQ).The program was actually planned on the Friday, 6th March. But we decided to rent a room at Palma Beach Resort on Thursday (so did most of the committee members and several other families).
So, I rented a car on Wednesday afternoon and took the Thursday off. Lina had a field trip at Safa Park that day and her mother was there too as an assistant. So, after doing a few errands in the morning, I took Apit to the school to pick up Ain. I managed to submit his school application forms as well. After that we went straight to Safa Park. My wife and Lina were waiting there. They were enjoying their morning at the park. The teachers and kids were about to leave the park when we arrived. So, after a quick lunch of Nasi Goreng at the park, we headed off for Mirdiff. We will be going to UAQ in a convoy.
We left Mirdiff at about 515pm, in three cars (a Mitsubishi, a Cadillac and a Toyota) and proceeded along the Emirates Road passing by the emirates of Sharjah, Ajman and Ras Al-Khaimah. The traffic was quite congested as people were travelling due to the long weekend ahead.
We arrived at the resort at about 615pm, checked in and take a couple of hours’ rest. We had a barbecue gathering that night. Luckily we brought some sausage and I made some coleslaw (if we could call it that).It’s almost 12 when we got back to the room and dozed off.
We overslept.... it’s almost 7am when I woke the family up. We washed ourselves..... and went for the complimentary breakfast (wasn’t much but it’s practically free).
We registered at the counter and got our “house ribbons”. They put us in the yellow house.
The boat ride to the island took less than 10 minutes.... we rode on a speed boat.
The events had already started when we reached the island. It’s quite a beautiful place.....the weather was beautiful as well, and windy. We were greeted by Bro Mazlan, our House Captain. We quickly signed up for the games. I signed up for water polo and tug-of-war. Later, they cancelled the polo and we played champion’s ball instead (because they beach was filled with creatures suspected to be jellyfish....so, they cancelled all water-related games).
My wife entered the “galah panjang” and the ladies medley events..... she also helped in designing the “House Flag”. Lina entered several events.....the medley, “galah panjang”, tug-of-war, dodge-ball. I think she got at least a runners-up prize for all her events. Ain also joined the “Sand-bowl” event but didn’t win it. She also had a few of her events cancelled due to the jellyfish. And...hehe... she cried over this.....
Apit, on the other hand, was busy playing on the sandy beach.... Once in a while, he will come back to the cabana to drink some water....We stopped at around 1230 when the call/adzan for the Jumaat solat was sounded over the PA system. Since there was no more water in the bath room (I think they forgot to turn on the water pump), we took our ablution using sea water (it’s also “air mutlak”).
The sermon/khutbah was given by Bro Yusree who also led the solat. It’s so good to see that amidst the enjoyment under the sun, we didn’t forget our obligations to our Creator. We performed Jumaat solat on the sandy white sand and under open air.After that and after a short lunch, we continued our events/games. I had a final of men’s Champion’s Ball to play.....and the ultimate event, the Tug-of-War. We lost the final for men’s Champion’s Ball (with me twisting my knee again) but practically pulled ourselves into the Tug-of-War final.
My experience after so many Tug-of-War events during my younger years....is size doesn’t matter. Our opponents were big.....but with good strategy and good mentality, we won the Tug-of-War (.....surprisingly, I didn’t even feel my knee hurting.....).The programs ended at almost 530pm and we took the slower boat back to the resort. It was almost Maghrib time when we left the resort and we stopped by at the nearby masjid o perform our Maghrib solat.
It was a smooth driving back to Dubai....however, we did manage to get lost in Sharjah, but luckily found our way out. We stopped to buy dinner and headed straight home.
Once arriving home, it took us three trips up and down the elevator to get our stuff back to the apartment.
We were all tired.... with muscle pains that would definitely get worse the next day (and it did)...... But the overall feeling was that we had a wonderful time in UAQ.
Many thanks to our friends in MyUAE-Pro and all the volunteers for making this weekend trip something that we will never forget.
Malaysia Boleh!!!
More photos HERE
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