Musandam Governorate

Ships are guided along that side in the shadow of Oman's peninsula.

It's called Musandam, Musandam Peninsula.

That peninsula was right at the Strait of Hormuz.

It's away from the Iranian shore.

The week did include the sinking on Wednesday of GFS Pride, a Singapore-flagged container ship.

On Friday, Oman's Transport Ministry warned fishermen and mariners to stay away from containers drifting near Musandam, saying some might hold hazardous materials.

The United States Central Command offered a different picture of the same waterway.

Admiral Brad Cooper, the commander, said about four hundred commercial vessels passed through the strait over the past week, and that American forces helped Gulf partners move more than one hundred million barrels of crude.

And clearly, Trump had also this sort of si-similar understanding to the Israeli, to the Israeli spokespersons and media personalities claiming that Iran is looking to do something, uh, very unacceptable with their nuclear technology.

But it seems like that's still a major point that Iran is not willing to budge on, Conrad, as well as obviously the status of the Straits of Hormuz, which-- where this week we saw at least two days ago and, you know, throughout the entire week really, and this is almost a repeating news story we cover every single week, and seems like it doesn't change, but there's explosions being heard in the straits very close to the Musandam governorate, of course, of Oman, where, you know, the Straits of Hormuz essentially bend around the peak, uh, the sort of O-Omani peak, uh, peninsula located there.

So there's still allegedly, uh, IRGC attacks on some of these ships going through the straits.

And then, of course, we had a, an official statement by the IRGC Guard Navy actually stating truly that they control the Straits of Hormuz entirely, and this was made, uh, less than twenty-four hours ago as the recording of this episode is happening.

On the north coast you have Iran.

On the south coast you have the United Arab Emirates and an enclave of Amman called Musandam.

Now, I want you to picture yourself at the helm of a very large crude carrier, known in the industry as a VLCC.

You're standing on the bridge of a floating piece of infrastructure that is longer than the Empire State Building is tall.

Yeah.

Okay, so we're now in, uh, Hasab, which is the closest thing to civilization here in, uh, the Musandam Peninsula.

So right here you got a spot promoting knives and roofs-

[laughs]

It was very interesting, Conrad, to just see how whilst Iran and these US delegates were having these conversations, there was, of course, the bombing in the Straits of Hormuz continued.

And this took place, of course, between the island of Larak and the Musandan government.

This is the tip of the Straits of Hormuz, the tip of the straits.

Omanian Peninsula that basically all the ships have to sail across and basically sail around.

Turning from the rostrum to the fighting, the picture was more fragmented than the diplomacy suggested On the water, the toll on commercial shipping grew again.

Early Wednesday, a cargo vessel, the Cape Dao, flagged in Antigua and Barbuda, was struck by an unidentified projectile in the Strait of Hormuz, about two and a half nautical miles off Oman's Musandam coast.

Oman's Navy said one crew member was killed and twenty-seven were evacuated.

India's Foreign Ministry said the dead sailor was an Indian national, one of twenty Indians aboard.