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In March 65, three of us started driving an old long-wheelbase Land Rover station wagon from Muscat to UK. We fitted it with spares and survival gear.

Having arrived at a muddy creak called Dubai, we contracted a small dhow, about 40' long. The LR would just fit athwartships abaft the mast, with its ends projecting outboard. The owner was almost completely blind, his eyes having turned blue, and he carried the 3' long stick with a 90° crook in the end used to steer camels by tapping them on the head.

He would not leave for The Shah's Persia until conditions were flat calm, so we lived for several days in the hold with the rats and cockroaches, part and parcel of life. To go from stern to bow, one crawled through the hold. The owner's grandson worked the tiller and diesel.

Eventually, one misty night, he decided to go. Visibility, darkness, no stars, made no differance to him. He did it all by the sound of the waves. Approaching Bandar Abbas in darkness, I went forward to watch the arrival. The Captain was in the bow, listening to the waves splashing on either side of the entrance, and giving helm orders using his camel stick. Of course the entry was perfect.

Astounding.