Mystery of Dalma Island (دلما)

There is this island off the coast where I'm staying now - called Dalma Island. This island is a bit mysterious and I was wondering whether to visit it one of these weekends. I found the following description in Wikipedia:

"Dalma is an island approximately 20 miles (32 km) off the coast of Abu Dhabi. The population consists of about 10 thousand inhabitants, most of whom are Iranian and Qatari who have been granted United Arab Emirates (UAE) nationality. The island has many private farms for the ruling family of Abu Dhabi."

And as I surfed the internet, I found a website by one of the island's resident which you could check out at http://fatima1880.tripod.com/id4.html. It says in one paragraph:

"...Delma Island does not look like a desert strip. Rather, it is as if a giant farm has been torn out of a fertile European country and transferred to Abu Dhabi. Visitors to the island are surprised to see cabbage, cauliflower, onion, cucumber, tomato, melon, pepper, parsley, banana and mango growing here. They are even more surprised to see such trees that are alien to the area as apple, pear, strawberry, fig, almond, grape, orange, lemon, olive, kiwi and cedar."

Hmmm.... doesn't that sound interesting in the middle of the desert land? As of now, I have yet to visit the island. But I can easily catch a ferry from the jetty which is just located outside my camp. And after visiting the official website of Dalma Island at http://www.dalmaisland.com/ I think I have even more reason to explore this place which is definitely off the beaten path.

The area around the jetty itself is beautiful and pristine. The blue sea in the backdrop of a light blue sky with small boats anchored around the beach. Sound of birds chirping as the hover around the bay. The entire place is a picture of calm. At the jetty, you could see some villagers waiting for their ferry to the Dalma Island or for the connecting bus to Ruwais or Abu Dhabi. It costs Dh2 to Ruwais and only Dh12 to Abu Dhabi. The bus frequency is low but hey, it's cheap and I don't mind it. The best part is the bus passes right in front of my camp providing me a cheap mode of transport for provisions in Ruwais and holiday in Abu Dhabi.

Well after all this blogging, alas I have yet to make the trip to Dalma Island. I would soon... I'm intrigued by the lush farmland there (something I don't seem to see anywhere in this part of the world). There's also a pearl museum on Dalma apparently because the place used to be known as Pearl Island... interesting! So I'll update this blog on Dalma Island as soon as I pay it a visit!