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Where Did Nephi Build the Ship?
Pictures

Looking into the ominous, barren canyons of Wadi Sayq (pronounced "sike") in modern Oman. Best evidence suggests that in one of these feeder canyons Lehi and his party entered the wadi and followed the directions of the Liahona the remaining 16 miles to the ocean.

"The best guide to Arabia at the time...imagined forests and lakes in the center of the peninsula, while insisting that the whole coastline was 'a rocky wall...as dismal and barren as can be: not a blade of grass or a green thing' to be found."

Western light spills over awesome mount at the seashore site of Wadi Sayq. This mountain, situated next to the isolated beach, is a candidate for the place Nephi would have come to receive instructions from the Lord. "I, Nephi, did go into the mount oft, and I did pray oft unto the Lord; wherefore the Lord showed unto me great things. (1 Nephi 18:2)

This forest is Arabia's surprise, an anomaly in a land of sand and mountains like the moon.

Looking west across one of the freshwater sources and up Wadi Sayq in Oman toward the beautiful, lush mountain sides. It may have been that agricultural areas were on the west side of the wadi area while shipbuilding took place on the east.

For a place to qualify as Bountiful, it had to have timber in enough types and sizes to permit ship building and a mountain prominent enough to be called "the mount," close enough that Nephi could retreat there and "pray oft."

But how do you photograph the Book of Mormon lands? Where do you go to shoot Zarahemla when no road signs have yet been found saying "Zarahemla-City Limits"? How do you follow the path of Lehi from Jerusalem to Bounitful when the literal sands have blown over the trail for nearly twenty-six centuries. Where did Nephi build that ship?

Large trees sixty to eighty feet high grow in abundance starting about one-half mile from the seashore. Hardwood trees in the area include tarmarind, sycamore, and boscia. The over three-quarters-of-a-million square miles of Arabia are devoid of timber save this very small region of the Dhofar.

He looked to the right and to the left and then said to us in hushed tones, "I can give you this map, but it is a top secret military map. Be careful."

Within minutes, at full throttle, we arrived at one of the most beautiful locations in the million square miles of Arabia. The boy haltingly uttered his first English sentence, "This is Wadi Sayq."

Looking southwest to the main lower section of Wadi Sayq in modern Oman. Even in this driest month of the year, May, this Dhofar region is lush and green with vegetation. These green mountains are just miles from the desert wadi pictured above, and would certainly be a great refreshment to a desert traveler who had come 2,500 miles.

Just before they had come to Bountiful, they had traveled through the wilderness of their much affliction, probably skirting the world's most terrible wilderness-the Empty Quarter. This is a place so miserable that its first recorded crossing was in 1928.

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