If you’re looking for a short roadtrip, you can check out the shipwreck in Umm Al Quwain. We visited the shipwreck last year and it was a fun easy drive with our 4×4.
The Site
Settled on the shore of the UAQ beach were traces of what used to a small but sturdy ship, rusting away. From our research we expected to find a crowd at the wreck and sure enough, there were families and groups of friends populating the beach to view the site. So, if you’re stumped for outing ideas during the pandemic, this could be your socially distanced way to make the most out of your weekend. It definitely was for us.
However, you have to keep your wits about you. Keep all valuables in your car before you get onboard the ship as it is at an angle and there is a lot of potential for losing things (to be explained later…). To get on board the ship, we used a stray rope for support and mounted our feet on one of the ship’s rusted pipes. Expect to see a lot of debris and garbage scattered around the ship (some people are not as kind to the environment as we’d like them to be).
The lower deck of the ship was completely submerged in the water so it would not be advisable to venture down there. We stuck to the middle and top levels of the ship to do our exploring. After looking around, we spotted a point where you could jump off the middle level of the ship. We couldn’t miss out on that opportunity and took the plunge.
The Route
The drive took us roughly 2 hours. About 70% of the drive was on the highway and we had to get off the road for the last 20 minutes of the journey as the gate to get to the shipwreck was closed. We arrived at a beach and spotted the shipwreck in the horizon so all we had to do was drive to it. Sounds simple and easy, right? Wrong.
The shipwreck appeared to be to the left of the beach, so we planned our route and started the drive there. After a couple of minutes of driving around with no shipwreck in our sights, we got out of the car and realised that the shipwreck was now to the right of us. Oops. This is when we thought of getting a compass.
The exact location might be difficult to drive to due to the large dunes breaking up the beach so just be aware of this and you might have an easier time getting to the destination than we did. Google maps will get you in the vicinity of the wreck, but since it is in between 2 large dunes you may end up on either side of it like we did. To avoid this, you could try climbing onto to a dune and try to navigate a way that will get you directly to the location.
Our Experience/Advice
If you’re planning on doing the jump, remember to not lock your knees as the waterbed is not too far below and the water level was shoulder-length high. We jumped in at 6:30pm, around high tide, and had to actively swim away from the hull of the ship as the tide was pulling us in.
As for the giant epic fail portion of our trip, it wasn’t how we lost sight of the shipwreck twice on our drive there. It was how we managed to lose a phone on the ship, hence our previous warning to you. We suspect that it’s still there somewhere beneath the dark murky waters that occupy the ship’s floor. Unfortunately, we arrived as the sun was going down which left no daylight for us to scope out the lost phone.
So if any of you are planning a drive up to the shipwreck; make sure to plan your route properly, keep your knees loose if you jump in and if you happen to find an iPhone X, you know how to reach us. Good luck and safe adventuring!
