After a week’s fascinating tour of much but by no means all of Oman, it was time to foregather for the return trip. Rendez vous time was determined by the time of Phil’s family’s return day flight to London and this would allow us a relaxed journey to Abu Dhabi with time to look around this city on arrival.
First we needed to refuel; special arrangements had been made to use our BP card to pay for fuel and this duly arrived in a small bowser drawn by a tractor. With the intervening mountains requiring a climb to FL160, I kept fuel uplift to a minimum. Embarkation for start up; fuel pump on high …… and no fuel pressure!! Phil shut down, we got out and started to look under the bonnet. I made a call to Stuart at RGV, picked up by him at fourth ring early on a Sunday morning which was very impressive. In the end all was fine; I think the problem was a vapour lock in the line between pump and gauge caused by a week sitting out in the tropical sun. However, it delayed us around three hours so on arrival at Abu Dhabi, there was no time to do anything other than refuel and go to our overnight hotel.
Muscat to Abu Dhabi: 230 nm in 2 hours 15 minutes.