The Perfect Beach

Beach with the city in the background

I haven’t gotten much of a chance to explore Abu Dhabi. As I said previously, I’m here for school first and foremost. Tourism, unfortunately, comes second.  However, I have gotten to have some fun on the weekends.

This past weekend was action packed all by itself.  On Friday (remember, weekends here are Friday and Saturday) a bunch of us dragged ourselves out of bed to go to the beach.  Abu Dhabi has a great waterfront area full of public beaches. We arrived in the main city, went to the grocery store for essentials (hummus, bread and a beach towel for me. Others were more practical with water and fruit.) then took a short taxi ride to the water front.

Thus began our extensive search for the perfect beach.  The Corniche is two kilometers long and split into gated beach areas. We were aiming for an area of beach we noticed with volleyball nets, but we found it extremely crowded and decided to go to the next gate.  At this gate there were umbrellas and chairs set out – perfect!  There was a small fee to get in, but when we went to pay it we were informed that we were not allowed in.  It took us a few minutes, but we eventually figured out that this was a family beach. Which apparently means you can only enter with an equal number of males and females. We were 2 girls and 3 guys. Not allowed in. 

The beach where swimming is allowed!

The journey continues. We walked down to the next gate. This time we figured we had it. No beach chairs, but also no fees and no guarded gate.  We set up and the other 4 went to change (I didn’t want to waste any beach time by having to change, so I came beach-ready).  No sooner had they come back than the lifeguard came up to inform us that there was no swimming at this beach. Strike 3.  Luckily, instead of walking to the next gate, we only had to walk to the next beach over.

We proceeded to set up, one last time, after confirming that we could in fact swim at that beach.  We then pulled out the volleyball to play a little.  You might guess what’s coming. Not allowed. This time, we couldn’t muster up the energy to move and just stayed.  We are still searching for the perfect beach.