Al Zubara Fort

At the beginning of February we took a trip to visit Al Zubarah Fort. When we left, we had vague directions found online (which is how all directions in Qatar are). We should have looked a little more so we wouldn't have been so surprised when we realized we were driving over to the western coast.
The drive wasn't too bad, as Qatar isn't very big. Once we arrived, we paid a small fee (10 QR) to the "gatekeeper," who was a very interesting looking fellow.

The fort was built in 1938 on the ruins of a castle. Being right on the coast, it was a great location to protect the country, especially against strained relations at the time with neighboring Bahrain. In the 80s the Coast Guard used this as a post as well.

Leoni checking out the cannon

My mom & me

Keeping watch

Travis ascending a ladder to one of the towers

Lindsay

Nor helping Leoni try to join us

The primitive air conditioning
Wind from the Gulf breezes comes through to keep thing cool

Travis & Leoni checking out some of the downstairs rooms where artifacts from the Al Zubarah archaeological dig are displayed

Since we were up north anyway, we decided to drive the last bit to Qatar's northern tip, Al Ruwais. We saw wild camels along the way.

Al Ruwais is pretty small but lots of fishing boats were docked there

It was low tide

Piles of fishing traps

You can kind of see how clear and blue these shallow waters are here

On our way home, we drove along the Corniche in Doha and stopped to take some pictures