Masirah Island

Masirah has been inhabited for thousands of years, and the sea rather than the land has always decided its fortunes. Its people fished, dived for shells and built wooden boats, and the island lay on the sailing routes between Arabia, East Africa and India; the strong summer winds that draw kitesurfers today made it a difficult and dangerous shore for sailing ships, and wrecks along the beaches were a source of timber for generations.

Its modern history is largely aviation history. The Royal Air Force established a staging post on the island before the Second World War and kept an airfield here for decades afterwards as a link on the route between Britain, the Gulf and Asia, with the installation handed over to Oman in the second half of the 1970s. The airfield remains in use as a Royal Air Force of Oman base, and military employment sits alongside fishing as a mainstay of the island.

Since 1970 the island has been connected to the rest of Oman in ways it never was before: a ferry service for vehicles from Shannah, sealed roads down both coasts, electricity and desalinated water, schools and a hospital. Cyclones crossing the Arabian Sea have caused serious damage, Cyclone Gonu in 2007 above all, when some 7,000 islanders had to leave their homes because of storm waves, and rebuilding after such storms has shaped much of what stands in the villages today. Conservation has become part of the island's identity too, as its beaches are recognised internationally for the turtles that nest on them.

Island life here is Omani and Arabic-speaking, shaped by the sea and by a long habit of self-reliance. Families are large and closely related, most trace their living to fishing, and the rhythms of boats, tides and the monsoon still organise the week. Traditional skills — net mending, boatbuilding, navigation by wind and star — were until recently everyday knowledge, and older men in the villages remember when almost everything arrived by dhow.

The island's old craft reputation was in weaving and in the making of wooden vessels, and the household arts of the Omani coast — coffee served from a long-spouted dallah, incense burned for guests, dates offered before anything else is discussed — are kept up more strictly here than in the cities. Hospitality to strangers is a point of pride, and visitors who stop in a village are often invited to sit and drink kahwa.

Religious observance is visible: mosques in every village, the call to prayer carrying over the water, and a quiet island during Ramadan, when working hours shorten and the evenings come alive after the fast is broken. The two Eids are the great family occasions, when relatives working on the mainland come home. Dress is conservative, and visitors who match it are treated warmly; it is also a community where news travels fast, and courtesy counts for more than anywhere a traveller has just come from.

Roughly twelve to fifteen thousand people live on Masirah, most of them in Hilf at the northern tip and in a string of smaller villages down the western shore; the southern half of the island is largely empty. The island runs about ninety-five kilometres from north to south and is twelve to fourteen kilometres wide, so nowhere is far from the sea.

Fishing is the backbone of the economy. Small fibreglass boats go out for kingfish, tuna, sardines and lobster, and much of the catch is trucked to the mainland on the ferry; sardines are also dried on the shore for feed and fertiliser. The air force base, government service, schools, the hospital, the ferry and a small tourist trade in kitesurfing and turtle watching provide most of the remaining work, and many families have members employed in Muscat or Sur.

The day starts early, before the heat, with boats returning to the landing and the fish sold by mid-morning; shops shut in the early afternoon and open again towards evening. Everything else — building materials, most food, spare parts — comes over on the ferry, which makes the crossing the island's central fact of life. Fresh water is desalinated, wind and salt are hard on vehicles and buildings, and the seasonal monsoon, which can interrupt sailings for days, still sets the limits of island life.

Fish dominates the table. Kingfish, tuna, grouper, sardines and lobster are landed daily, and the ordinary meal is grilled or fried fish with rice, a tomato-based sauce and Omani flatbread. Mashuai, a whole kingfish spit-roasted and served with lemon rice, is the coastal dish kept for guests and celebrations, while salted and sun-dried fish is a long-standing way of keeping a catch in a hot climate.

Beyond the sea, the food is that of Oman generally, with a strong Indian influence brought by long trade across the Arabian Sea and by the shopkeepers and cooks who run most of the island's restaurants. Machboos — spiced rice cooked with meat or fish — is the standard festive dish, biryani and curries are everyday fare in Hilf, and shuwa, meat marinated in spices and cooked slowly in a covered pit, appears at Eid. Dates, camel or goat meat and thin rounds of khubz complete the picture.

Drinking is a ritual of its own. Kahwa, coffee flavoured with cardamom and often rosewater, is poured in small cups for every visitor, with dates alongside and frequently halwa, Oman's dense rosewater-and-saffron sweet. Fresh lime juice and karak-style milky tea are the usual cold and hot drinks in the town.