A trip to the beach. (Accidentally)

Karla has this week off for the end-of-Ramadan holiday, "Eid al Fitr", so yesterday we and a couple of her co-workers took a little trip to some of the smaller northern Emirates: Sharjah, Ajman and Umm al Quwain. We saw a few museums and other sites, many only from the outside since they were closed for the holiday. It was still a fun trip and very interesting; we will have many ideas about what we want to go back and see on future trips. One of the highlights of the day was a wrong turn we took on the way from Ajman to Umm al Quwain which took us into the area of Hamriya, an area mostly dominated by industry and shipping since it is a designated "Free Zone" of Sharjah. "Dominated" is not really a very descriptive word in this case. It is a very large area with only a few industrial compounds, but even fewer homes. However as we passed through the area of the houses we noticed that we could see the Arabian Gulf nearby, so we decided to take a look since we hadn't seen it up close yet. (Yes, the ARABIAN Gulf, NOT the 'Persian' Gulf. Not on this side of it at least!)
When we rounded the block going towards the water we discovered there was a lovely public beach area, and even more lovely water bordering that. Both Karla and I took several picture with our cameras, but they really do not do the place justice! It tremendously beautiful. That water was so blue and there were so many sea shells on the beach. I haven't seen a beach that pretty in a very long time.
If you come visit us sometime a trip there is a big must. besdies being lovely it was deserted except for us! It was a pretty out of the way place so it may be relatively unpopulated anytime of the year.
Karla took pictures of it and of other stops on our day trip that she will share as well.
Here is the address for the web album and a few of the pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/pauliancastle/TheBeachAtHamriya#