For much of the last week dense, early morning and late evening fog has descended over the country, reducing visibility to just a few metres, crippling road-bound traffic and confining fishermen to port.
Authorities have warned fishermen about putting out to sea in bad weather but this has placed captains and crews in a quandary. Should they risk fishing when bad weather means that stocks are low and prices are high or should they remain, safely, at home?
Captured by the Canadian photographer Alain Saint-Hilaire, a similar thick fog faced this fisherman in 1975 in the waters off Umm Al Quwain and, while the technology of fishing may have changed in the intervening years, the conditions that cause the weather remain the same.
The fog that traditionally affects the UAE at this time of year is known as advection fog and is the result of warmer, moist air from the sea passing over the land as it cools at night, which causes the warm air to condense into tiny droplets of water that form a thick, ground-level cloud.
Abu Dhabi-based meteorologists have warned that, as a phenomenon that occurs in cooler months, there is no immediate end in sight for the current foggy conditions and that rough seas can also be expected.
Then, as now, bad weather represented both an opportunity and a risk to the mariners of the Arabian Gulf and now, as then, the price of fish was ultimately counted not in dirhams, but in the lives of men.
* Nick Leech
