Monday January 30, 2023
An interesting day at sea as we headed through the Straights of Hormuz between Iran and the UAE / Oman. Of interest is that 25% of the world’s oil (something like 18 million barrels) pass through this area every day.
Lucy Russell, the dramatic educator from Germany gave a very interesting talk on the old Greek, Roman and Mesopotamian musical instruments and even sang one of the 2000 year old songs in Ancient Greek and had clips of instruments being played that were depicted on ancient Anfora’s (vessels for keeping wine, olive oil etc). Concurrently with this Anne attended the Port lecture on Muscat, our stop back in Oman after we leave Dubai. By the way it appears that 400 guests will depart in Dubai and 300 (including friends of the Christopher Coopers) will embark. We look forward to meeting them.
Next was a fascinating interview with the POW pilot John Peters who was shot down during the first Gulf War, together with his wife, Helen. It was interesting to hear both from the captive standpoint as well as the spouse at home, the way both dealt not only with the ordeal itself, but the aftermath. We had hoped to chat with him as Roddy Barrow and I think Judy also both know him and serve on a charity together. Unfortunately he slipped out of the back of the theatre not to be seen again!
The third lecture was the British Ambassador Stuart Laing who both he and his wife had given talks all relating to their time in the foreign service in Oman, and other Arabic speaking countries. This time he spoke on the history of piracy and the slave trade in this region of the world. There were about as many slaves (20 million) that were traded in this part of the world as there were going the other way to the Americas!
Roy G. Hemming, one of the famous group – The Drifters, performed a well received Motown review. Anne enjoyed it, but Roger was on a Zoom meeting so could only hear the raucous enjoyment when the theatre door opened admitting latecomers!
Tomorrow, we are up early as we have to be in Abu Dhabi at 7 AM to go through immigration so we can catch our tour.
Roger & Anne Travels 