The fact that the two boats heading towards us were all part of the same armada we belonged to, didn’t provide much comfort as they drew closer, because, as I held onto the side rail of this vessel, my feet were attempting to follow an alternative direction to that of my head, while the ups and downs and rocking and rolling of the deck seemed to move and want to liberate itself from the fixtures and rim of the ship it was attached to, and which was regularly followed up by the worrisome sounds of creaking and bumping noises from below. So, I manifested a paranoia of being lost at sea because of the waves, or else rammed by the approaching boats, and consequently I gave into the fear we were going to be sunk, and downwards we would go, without any turn skywards as we plunged into the depths.

I hadn’t the wit to consider that less than 48 hours previously I had volunteered for this experience with great enthusiasm; while anticipating at the time of the invitation that it could only have meant my being asked along in order to cruise on a culturally luxurious voyage, presumably in a modern yacht across a heavenly made and calmly opaque blue sea that would sparkle as I luxuriated in warm breezes and a soothing heat from the sun I would be shaded from!

Having spontaneously jumped at the chance to go on this trip in order to witness the historic tradition of pearl fishermen diving into the middle of The Gulf, I hadn’t asked anyone what style of craft we would actually embark upon, nor reflected upon whether it would be by the means of the imaginary craft I had so enthusiastically conjured in my mind.

I had not envisioned voyaging on a time-honoured wooden boat known regionally as a 'Dhow', and which looked as though it might have been built at least two centuries previously (as did most other Dhow’s I saw).

So, as I clambered aboard that morning, I recall some of my previous thoughts were being challenged by what I was now looking at, but which were being equally dismissed by the nervous knowledge that surely everything would be fine, when after all this had been re-enacted for centuries by these very peoples ancestors, so indubitably everything was well understood and inherently practised by generations of seamen and their descendants. 

Also, this was an especially rare, exciting and unusual opportunity and I wasn’t going to lose a once-in-a-lifetime chance to participate as a guest on such a voyage.

However, these reassurances we give ourselves only last for a short time, and then the cycle of doubt kicks back in, and so our feelings roll round and round, because it’s funny how just 45 minutes after leaving the harbour, I was asking myself why had I risked it? while also wondering what can I now do about being here, and coming to the conclusion … absolutely nothing …? I was doomed to enter Davy Jones locker!

However, another resilience had locked itself deeper inside of me, and which had come from the memory of experiences thirty years earlier when I went out on fishing trawlers from Kilronan in the The Aran Islands, while witnessing at that time how fearsome the Atlantic could be, and now consoling myself to the certainty of knowing I clearly had survived! ... But that’s for another story. 

Only two nights previous to this Middle Eastern sailing I had attended a welcoming reception where Ruth (my wife) and I were guests among a group of other foreigners visiting Bahrain, and knew nothing about this forthcoming prospect. But when mentioned as an opportunity I was swept away by the offer of witnessing a genuine and traditional annual activity being held in honour of the King, and where I would see first-hand a number of skilled Pearl Fishermen dive off the side of our vessel into depths of 40 feet or so in order to find and claim pearls on behalf of the Monarch, and to whom the catch would be presented on the following day. This special event is what captured the feeling for me of being in what was otherwise a worthy enough subject to be a documentary.

Without going into historic detail, but until the 1930s pearls accounted in terms of value for 75% of Bahrain and the rest of The Gulf’s worldwide exports, and they were regarded as being the finest on the planet. However, investments in pearl ‘farming’ destroyed the indigenous character of the industry, and today the activity I was participating in is carried on as more of a symbolic honouring of Arabic heritage, rather than being a necessarily profitable distraction.

However, returning to my trepidations I had accepted the chance of going out with an Arabic crew, but without realising what that meant! A Dhow is straight out of a time we all imagine recalling at school as belonging to a remote, removed and presumably no longer existent foreign culture.

Pirates! Corsairs! God bless our naivety for such conclusions! Ancient history still lives on and can be witnessed by any adventurous simpleton willing to throw their life into the mix, and such a characteristic is easily applied to myself.

I hadn’t prepared myself; I didn’t stop to ask anything precautionary or sensible in my arrangements for such a voyage, and consequently turned up at the dockside in a pair of shorts, T-shirt, casual shoes, hat and fortunately, a tube of sun block.

I suppose that might be the best way to come into contact with the unexpected - presume you understand, and therefore face the consequences when you realise you don’t, and then just progress the experience and events ahead, and live in the moment. Just continue to be unaware, and run with it! 

I came to understand, after living in that part of the globe for some time, that by accepting the moment for what it is, is a particularly appropriate position from which to commence any adventure because, and as I discovered more about the Arab approach to life, I understood what initially appears to be a lot of disorganised activity that embraces bedlam is really an example of humanity blending with the circumstances of reality around it - because nature and the forces surrounding us originate elsewhere, and our aspirations thereby adapt only to that certainty. 

From such perspectives you therefore work it out as you go along with events, while and as they occur, but which is not a very Western way of understanding your surroundings when the conventions of the instant are observably, or at least appear to be a mayhem of man versus common sense, while in the meantime having to acknowledge because of where you are, that the rules are not made by us, but by 'God'.

So, on this particular escapade I learned through retrospective reflection that everyone sailing the craft had what I would call ‘a style of responsibility’ which they enacted according to a spontaneity of what they believed was the next thing to do, rather than based upon another person’s authority or duties as delegated to them. It seemed that the work which needed to be done was learned according to previous experiences based upon earlier journeys out to sea, which made each task evident because it was similar to previous occasions, rather than through the application and command of any on board authority.

Consequently, there was an expectation each sailor knew - I hoped - what to do next as we progressed. It certainly instilled a sense of leaving one's fate in the hands of a casually unsystematic order, and feelings of a necessary faith inspired by involuntary prayer ...

On this occasion - and as an outsider to the culture (by that time I had only been in Bahrain for seven or eight days) - it simply seemed to be more or less a case of abandoning thoughts for the future and whatever plans there might be for tomorrow, and instead replacing them with a required fear of having to live in the moment as I watched the crew casually taking up whatever duty seemed evident from where each deck-hand had left off previously, and in doing so it was without any strongly identifiable Captain's leadership - and all of this done in the philosophical faith the outcome would be somewhat safe and successful, while bereft of the pressure or stress of having to be too diligent!

These were not familiar feelings or thoughts to me. 

It was only as we got out of the harbour and sailed into the moving waves did I actually realise the extent of this informality amongst the crew, and how comparatively thinking - what we were commencing wasn’t being taken as overly serious. 

In some respects, a similar attitude might be at home when we play a casual game of football amongst friends in the local park. ‘We’ve done it before and its only for fun', before going for a few pints afterwards. Only in this case the sports pitch was the sea (Bahrain is a desert island, so there are not many land-based outdoor casual environments in which to relax or play many sports), and so we were at the mercy of the depths and hopefully skilled seamanship, and just as we celebrate at home after the event, so as happened after our voyage there was planned a celebratory feast of incredible art and proportions, and where all the drinks were soft ones, and the mirth between everyone was as infectious as any alcohol laced event.

My imaginings about these Corsair style pirates (like the ones who sacked and stole the whole population of Baltimore in 1631) was due to the almost mirage appearance of these oldish looking wooden decked two-masted Arab sailing vessels, with ‘lateen rigging’ (which are slanting, triangular sails) that were aiming to rendezvous with us in the middle of The Gulf according to a prearranged agreement by the three ‘presumed’ Dhow’s Captains. This was so we could tie up beside one another in a sideways manner and each of the crews could then intentionally and easily move from boat to boat, and consequently share a commonality of joy, laughter and camaraderie, as the pearl fishermen dived overboard, and all of which sounds like a very good idea on a calm day. But instead of which on this one, the boats simply crashed into each other while manoeuvring at dangerously varying angles.

Fortunately no one - inadvertently or otherwise - managed to directly ram another with the prow of their boat; which at the time seemed like a small mercy! So with the lively waters of the sea preventing such a communal off-shore bond from taking place, each boat's crew, in opposition to the seas efforts, was determined for some extended period of time to get close anyway, and at one stage one vessel did actually manage to tie up alongside our boat. But thankfully after some serious sounding warning crashes, creakings, and underfoot timber-tremors, it was decided to disengage - because I think common sense finally told everyone we would sink one another. 

What probably added to my anxieties was to learn mid-voyage that just three years previously a Dhow of the same design had tipped over, and 57 people had drowned. This was not comforting while trying to assess the skills of the crew - which was a style of seamanship I had no familiarity with, or appreciation for as I watched, and couldn’t relate to as I saw them naively attempt to steer and tie our boats together in a spot miles from shore - while the winds blew and easily bashed us either together, or else apart, depending upon the next gust or move of the waters. 

Thankfully, when the idea of strapping us together was abandoned, after an eternity of stressed reflections and tightened stomach muscles on my part I realised I had witnessed a culturally alternative and almost relaxed understanding of the vagaries of sailing. It took me a while to understand the Arabic mind is very much in harmony with nature, and most importantly 'God', and consequently all of what happens is according to ‘Gods Will’ and therefore fated - and so there is nothing we can do about it. We shall be taken at a specific time known only to him, and therefore we live according to what we do ... regardless of our own plans! I must admit to a great admiration for such a philosophy which so freely allows us to live our lives in the moment, and without regard to what eventually overtakes our existence!

Another feature relating to the image of pirates while watching their ships get closer to us, was seeing the crews exercising a state of excited shouting, revelry and seemingly undisciplined and unconcerned perkiness, which was enriched by their clothes flowing behind them, and further complimented by the head coverings being blown by the wind. In that part of the globe it is so sensible to see how their heads are tied and fixed by coverings which shield the wearer from the sun and, as the reader imagines a light-coloured head scarf (called a Kaffiyeh) that helps to reflect the heat and cools the body, while the cover it gives to the neck and face helps to prevent sunburn, and during cooler temperatures the heavier headdresses fulfil the reverse function and keeps the body warm, (whereas we don hats that simply get blown away in a breeze!).

Then all of these combined visions tended to remind me of so many swashbuckling films where once close enough - and at the last instant - I expected them to jump and maraud their way across to our ship's decks until they had fought sufficiently well to capture us, and then singularly make me to walk the plank!

During all the time at sea, the generosity I experienced was phenomenal. Recurrently, I was encouraged to help myself, and regularly offered bottles of cooled water, fruits, breads, sauces of numerous types, meats, sweets and onwards. It was like having an on-board banquet, and at the peak of which the pearl fishermen - who had refrained from eating - dived into the depths. And to my amazement seemed to stay there for minutes at a time, only to surface some distance away with a shout of victory as they bobbed around and held up their bags in which they had placed the oysters found, before diving back down again to try and find more.

There were six divers, and once we had returned to shore and gone through the ceremony of rejoicing in a safe (!) and successful voyage, the oysters were then opened in order to discover whether there were any pearls inside; while also assessing size and the quality of each. Apparently, it was a small enough catch with just six oysters being found in total - and none of which were exceptional in size, but for which the fishermen would still receive a reward from the King. 

Finally, after about nine hours at sea we returned without further incident, to a feast. 

I felt privileged to join in with about 60 or 70 sailors in circumstances where we sat on the floor of a beautifully ornate and decorated hall, in rows facing one another of about 35 persons on each side of a beautiful floral designed wax covered cloth which had been rolled out between us, and onto which there were positioned columns of plates and bowls that were stacked along the whole length, so that you could move onto and change to another course of culinary delight, while large dishes containing the most exotic and various foods imaginable were placed between every four persons, and which were constantly replaced so everyone had a chance to taste every flavour. 

What was also special, was to experience for the first time in my life was the formal Islamic tradition of eating from just one hand; there was no regular cutlery other than spoons, and the occasional knife necessary to cut meat, and stemming from which I felt uplifted to have been accepted into such wonderful and gracious company. And typical of every experience of that type in the Arab world, there was absolutely no charge for anything experienced during the whole day. It is the custom to treat people with kindness and generosity, and under absolutely no circumstances will the guest be allowed to contribute financially. I was a guest, and that was all there is to it. I would only be treated with generosity, regard, respect and friendship!