After the pass, at the head of wadi Shafiq, we decended to where the dunes of the Empty Quarter lapped against the bare rocky flanks of the mountains.
Two days we crossed those sifting sands, until the ocean grew from glittering slither below the horizon to stretch out vast and endless before us. But as we approached the shoreline, the perfect vanishing lines of the sky, sea and sand were broken by jagged structures strung out along the spine of the beach.
"Ruins, most likely, of the peoples who once lived here," Ibrah posited from a distance, in his most knowledgable and sagely manner. "Before the long winter, before the desert brushed all aside, this land was fertile and rich in ground water."
However, it was to everyone's astonishment, including Ibrah's, that his analysis was proven fiction upon closer inspection.
"Are those... giant sea flowers?" I recall gasping in awe. Perhaps the size of a house; Far larger than the crusty rusted metal bars and jagged strips that grew on the scum-line of the beaches back home.
"One supposes they have never been harvested, simply allowed to grow gargantuan."
"They seems to have formed a lattice structure, like the ribs of a whale," was I recall . For conversation was cut short by the call of our guide, racing down the beach towards the camel train.
"There is a storm! A storm's coming!" he cried. "We must find shelter!"
The sun was sinking fast, into the distant, yet fast approaching tide, as we lashed all the fabrics and cloth we could find to the sides of the flower. Even as the first razor sharp sands began to rasp our faces, the rising waters had already covered our ankles.
I will never forget waiting for the storm to pass that night.
made up for a rotten cold... Sniffle.
