I’ve talked before about how Bahrain is strange in that it’s an island without any beaches. Mostly because the island has been expanded over time using reclaimed land by building up the shallow areas below the water level until they are exposed and then building on the extra square footage all the way to the water’s edge.
There has been a building project going on out on one of the areas of reclaimed land and it’s not finished yet, but they just opened a public beach. To promote the new housing area (and to get people to buy units in the proposed community) they have been having special beach weekends with events to get people to come out and explore the new area.
One of the weekends was fitness themed and they organized some free events for people to join in on the beach: yoga, stand up paddle boarding, and CrossFit. Because we are nutters, when our gym said they were leading a special workout and we could come join them, we thought it might be fun to go. Truthfully, I thought it would be fun to go to the beach, Josh thought it would be fun to work out.
The new and huge mosque that is being built at the edge of the new development.
Pretty white sand and blue water!
Along with the fitness classes they had free camel rides, face painting, a balloon artist and some other kid oriented fun.
The scariest part!
The beach is beautiful, clean, and there’s nothing else like it in the country.
While we waited for the workout to start the kids played on the playground
She showed me that she learned how to swing herself at school!
All was going fine until a dark cloud came over Camille.
I didn’t know what was freaking her out until I saw
This guy. She was hiding from Elmo.
She was relieved when Elmo headed back down the boardwalk in the other direction and she was happy to get as far away from him as possible down on the beach.
We warmed up, got everyone together and then did a team workout. 6 teams of 3 people each for 25 minutes. A combination of running,
lifting weights,
And touching our toes to the bar. I’ve never been able to do it before, but my toes actually hit the bar a few times today!
Josh makes it look easy.
Our team of 3. Supposedly we’re all winners, just for participating, but I think the real winners are the ones who were watching from the sidelines, who didn’t get sweaty on a weekend. Naw, it was fun-ish. The burgers we ate afterward were more fun though.
It started getting chilly as the sun went down.
Time for one more camel ride before dark.
Night night, Bahrain beach! You’re lovely!