Hanging with the cool kids on Al Dar Island

Like many travellers, we often take a look at Trip Advisor to get a sense of whether something, be it a restaurant, a hotel, or an activity, is worth while. The reviews for a place like Al Dar Island are tricky. People really seem to hate it or love it. The truth?

Don’t listen to the negative nellies

As you might guess, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Is it the world’s nicest beach? No. Is it a pleasant place to spend a day? Absolutely.

Sure, there are some shells along the shore that make getting in and out of the water a little tough on the feet and the view of the industrial areas across the water leaves something to be desired, but really if you’re complaining about these things, you’re looking for a reason to complain.

As the sun can be quite intense we decided to splurge the 10 BHD (around $40 CAD) to get a sheltered bed on the paid side of the beach. We figured it might also be a little quieter on that side and we even thought Ella might have a nap there. Ok, that last part was wishful thinking.

In the end the bed got little use and we spent most of our time looking for fish, crabs and snails in the water and building sand castles.

Katy was able to use    take advantage of another nice perk of the island …

A moment of nostalgia

There are positives and negatives to getting older. On the downside, my joints tend to creak a lot more, I’m generally slower, and odd little aches and pains tend to hang around more than they used to. On the positive side though, are having a beautiful wife, a great little girl and the ability to afford travelling the world on holiday.

On the whole, I’m pretty comfortable with the tradeoffs of getting old, and I think Katy would agree, and she’s had a few extra months to think about it. [That chill you just felt was Katy looking at me when she read that.]

Every so often though, you can’t help but miss being 20, just a little. As our morning on the beach progressed, more and more 20 somethings started filling the huts down the beach from us. Both Katy and I had to admit to a little jealousy, as much fun as sand castles are. Especially when we realized that Ella was probably as close, if not closer, in age to the fun kids as us.

At the end of the day though, I’ll take these two over partying with the 20 year olds any day.

Eventually our day at the beach had to come to an end, and with it our time in Bahrain. We’re heading back to Doha to spend some time on the crazy man-made island called The Pearl.