By boat through the Strait of Hormuz at war: "Sir, do not suffer, you will see many dolphins"

Special correspondent to Khasab (Oman)The future of the world is being decided these days in the oil-blue waters of Hormuz. The headline is blunt, but it didn't scare Captain Ibrahim. Business comes before Trump's war. —Sir, I'll give you a special price for the war. You don't have to worry about anything.—But is it safe to sail? The strait is blocked and boats have been bombed.

—Sir, there's no problem. If we don't move away from the coast, there won't be any problem.

—But do you have permission to leave?

—Yes, of course. If we don't exceed the limit, there's no problem. Sir, don't worry, you'll see many dolphins and you can swim.

Captain Ibrahim was gaining the upper hand in the negotiation, and his boat would be the only tourist vessel to set sail on Friday from the port of Khasab, a fishing village in Oman blessed and cursed by geopolitics: located right in front of the world's most strategic strait,

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The context is known to everyone. Iran, on the other side of the sea, has blocked the Strait of Hormuz in response to the offensive by the United States and Israel, and war and economic chaos has imploded: about two thousand super-tankers are stranded and threatened with bombs if they move. 25% of the world's oil trade and 20% of liquefied natural gas passed through the strait. Transit has fallen by 90%. Markets are trembling, the global economy feels suffocated, and pressure is mounting on the White House, which is improvising the future of an increasingly dangerous war.

“Do you remember when I gave Iran ten days to accept a deal or open the Strait of Hormuz? Time is running out. There are 48 hours left for hell to take over them”, Trump blustered yesterday on X. A hell over Tehran that threatens a hell over the Gulf capitals, punished with ayatollah missiles and drones for a month.

But while waiting for Monday's hell, the Strait of Hormuz seemed like paradise on Friday.

Captain Ibrahim's tourist fishing boat ventured into a beautiful, brutal landscape, an arid version of the Norwegian fjords. The blue and turquoise waters coexist with steep white stone mountains, and solitary white sand beaches. A group of dolphins approached the boat and escorted us for almost the entire journey. The shiny animals jumped, danced, never losing the rhythm of our speed. Perhaps they came from the other side of the war. Perhaps at night they would sleep under the protection of the ayatollahs. I asked the sailors if on the Iranian coast, just 30 kilometers away, the scene also has this beauty. They said yes, and that Qeshm Island – which is shaped like a shark and which Tehran has already turned into a fortress – is even more beautiful. Captain Ibrahim played music. An electronic version of Rivers of Babylon was playing, a cheerful song with a sad origin: it is based on the Psalm 137 from the Bible, which speaks of the Jewish people exiled in Babylon after the destruction of Jerusalem. Destruction in a loop.

On the horizon, some of the merchant ships waiting for hell, the reopening of Hormuz, or both, could be seen. On clear days, the Iranian coast is visible and, for a month now, the black smoke from American and Israeli bombings. It is believed that more than 1,400 people have died in Iran since February 28, the night the war began. We do not know for sure because the regime has cut off connections and does not allow journalists in. An Iranian friend from Barcelona wrote to me upon learning that I was a few kilometers from her country. “Send a hug to see if, from where you are, it reaches my parents.” She has not received any news for two weeks.

“That ship is military; it belongs to the Omani navy,” another sailor, an immigrant from Bangladesh, told me, who does not want his name written. The Omani warship was the limit.

—What would happen if a ship crossed the limit?

—I wouldn't. The sea is mined.

—But that is not confirmed. It is only Tehran's version. How do you know there are mines?

—That's what the fishermen here say. They know the sea better than anyone.

If they know this sea so well, the fishermen of Khasab could perhaps help Trump in his “priority” objective of reopening Hormuz.

The Washington government, cornered by initial miscalculations, would be studying directly opposite options. On the one hand, Trump has threatened to consider the war over and abandon Hormuz, and has recommended that Europeans, if they want oil, go and get it, as he does not need it. On the other hand, he has insinuated that he is preparing a military operation to unblock the strait. European allies, who have denied support to the Pentagon, insist that both paths are madness and that diplomacy must be pursued. Tehran, empowered, will not be easily bought: it demands full sovereignty of the passage and the option of a toll of up to two million dollars per tanker.

But the United States continues to deploy troops in the Gulf – is it just a war bluff?, the world wonders – and videos of soldiers saying goodbye to family members at airports are accumulating on US social media. In the comments, users denounce that the uniformed personnel are being sent to die in the name of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. International analysts have been theorizing for weeks about how a US assault on Persian land could be carried out. Experts agree that the beauty of Hormuz would not help the Americans: the mountainous beaches favor defense operations and not attack. 

Medieval fortresses still visible in Hormuz seem these days an uncomfortable reminder of the nature of the human species.

Sailor Ibrahim's boat stopped in front of Telegraph Island, a historic islet, where in 1864 the British installed a telegraph station to communicate with British India. They are doing construction work on Telegraph Island. They are part of a tourism and heritage development project to promote the area as a cultural and leisure destination. The war will tell.

“Are there sharks in Hormuz?”, I asked sailor Ibrahim before diving into the water. “There are, but further out. You can swim here peacefully… you'll only see colorful fish”.

Where there are sharks, however, is in the sky. One of the models of military fighter jets that the United States is using to wage war on Iran are the A10 Warthogs, known for evoking the shape of a shark and, on their nose, they have painted the eyes and teeth of the marine predator.  On Friday, as we were sailing Hormuz, an A10 Warthog crashed in the strait. These combat aircraft know the area: they were already used by the Yankee army in the first two Gulf Wars.

The monarchies want silence

The Greek Theodor Kallifatides wrote that the best thing about traveling by boat is the possibility of slowly assimilating the landscape towards which you are heading.

On Friday, returning to Khasab, the landscape was easy to assimilate. The port was full of idle boats, a symptom of a declining economy. The large fishing boats continue to wait: they lack sea to sail. The tourist boats, waiting: clients from Dubai – only a two-hour drive away – are afraid to come and swim with dolphins. The smugglers' speedboats, which used to go back and forth from the Iranian coasts to smuggle gasoline above all, also waiting: crossing to Iranian territory is suicide.

International politics is like these boats, it also waits. And the Omanis also wait - and the Emiratis, and the Saudis, and the Qataris... - but they do so in silence. Where is the war heading?

“We can talk about whatever you want, but not about politics”, a man dressed in a white dishdasha and turban told me at the port of Khasab. The answer, phrased in other ways, was repeated among the inhabitants of Musandam. Those who dared to answer did so to evoke a mantra: “The war will be what God wills it to be”. What the God of Washington – or of Tel Aviv – wills.The silence is imposed. The Gulf monarchies warn the population not to speak publicly about the war. Oman, which mediated until the end to avoid the bombs, prohibits the dissemination of information related to the military escalation on the internet and, at the border, requires visitors to sign documentation regarding it. In the United Arab Emirates, neighbors to the south and the country in the region most punished by the ayatollahs, dozens of people have been arrested for posting interceptions of Iranian missiles and drones on Instagram.

The governments' great fear is that the impact of the missiles will destroy their reputation as an oasis of security, which had made them, in the eyes of succulent foreign investments, guarantors of stability and economic prosperity. Now the golden foundations of the desert tremble.

Amidst so much silence and tremors, the only sure answer I found was in the car on the way back, on the road to Oman, to the border with the United Arab Emirates, a journey into the future: from the camels, mosques, and ochre villages of Musandam, to the Ferraris, parties, and glass skyscrapers of Dubai. The driver, an Indian who had been living in the Omani monarchy for years, spoke thanks to the intimacy of the vehicle.

—Are people worried about how the war will evolve?

—What happens is not in our hands. Besides, what's the point of worrying? We are human: someday we will all die. The dolphins of Hormuz, intelligent animals, may feel the same. They are also at risk. In the Black Sea, the bombs of another war, that of Russia against Ukraine, have killed up to 50,000.