The Beach at Al Khor

We are lucky in a lot of ways. One of the main ways is the friendships we are blessed to have.  Back in Texas, we enjoyed getting to know two native Qatari students who were studying "abroad" at the home campus.  They are both some of the nicest, most generous people you could meet.

One of them took us to the beach outside Al Khor, Qatar, a smaller town (also growing rapidly, like Doha) about 25 minutes north of Doha.  The beach is quiet and secluded now, but come October, it will be solidly covered with family tents...a whole city of Qatari family tents.  Families set up camps for 6 months here, to enjoy the beautiful mild winter weather.

While we arrived at about 4:30 PM, the temperature earlier that day had been at least 50 degrees Celsius.  That converts to 122 degrees Fahrenheit, fyi.  This Qatari friend is kind and conscientious about our paleface people, especially the kids.  This is our second trip to a beach with him, and the first time he went out and bought a portable sunshade...like a really nice one...just to have protection.  This time, he brought his 13 year old sister with him...which I took as an incredible compliment, both from our Qatari friend and from his parents...that they would trust us to meet her and be good people.  Of course, the little sister just wanted to meet Hannah!

Here are some photos of the beach and some of the shells we had fun finding.  We also got to see the tide go out, to the point where the dead coral you see sticking out of the water was on dry sand by the time we left.  The dead coral was also home to snails and crabs, which were fun to spot.

Just as much fun was seeing the bluer sky and the stars.  No wind storms in the past few days, and this beach is far enough away from populated areas so the night sky is visible.  We stayed 5 hours, and it was a peaceful, lovely time.  Serious blessing time.

We drove right up to the water's edge.

Shells: that group on the left is the type of oyster that makes pearls.  These were opened (animal dead/gone) and either on dry sand or at the edge of the water...but they all still are "whole," both halves still connected, just opened.  The large pink shell in the middle has a sort of worm-like secondary shell "glued" to it.

More shells (three oyster shells at the bottom).