In need of a little weekend getaway, we took the short drive to Al Aqah over the Halloween weekend. The Iberotel Miramar Al Aqah was offering some great deals, and with it only being an hour and a half away, it offers a fantastic retreat from Dubai.

The hotel is luxurious and well laid out, with spacious rooms located around around a beautiful central pool. We had a long stroll along the beach by day and night – it’s a lovely stretch along the sand and from the end of the beach you can swim towards Snoopy Rock to take advantage of the great snorkelling (even if it is somewhat hectic nowadays)! The increased number of lifejacket donned tourists may have made the resident reef sharks more shy than normal, but we were delighted to spot an enormous turtle as we swam back to shore, stopping to watch him feed for some time.

On our nighttime walk we were startled to discover what we at first thought was some kind of submarine vessel that had washed ashore. On closer inspection the following morning (and after a few online searches) we discovered that it was a lifeboat registered to a Panama oil tanker that has washed ashore in Al Aqah, empty, after the recent stormy weather. Oddly, the shipping website had the ship’s status as ‘stopped’ and no one from the company was apparently willing to talk to press. Authorities had checked the vessel over but seemingly it had been left washed up on the beach untethered for the last month. We stopped to have a look inside and along with several other hotel guests, watched as it rocked from side to side and was gradually moved along the beach through long shore drift.

The food at the hotel was excellent, particularly the Thai restaurant and it was all very reasonably priced. Staff were on excellent form, perhaps encouraged by their ghoulish masks, scary props and detailed costumes, and the children followed them around throughout the weekend.

We very much enjoyed our stay and I will betake in a heart beat when looking for a nice relaxed break on the East coast.