Much closer to Dubai than to Muscat, the Musandam Peninsula is a 695-square-mile enclave that enables Oman to control the strategic Strait of Hormuz, which separates the Arabian Peninsula from Iran and through which passes about 20 percent of the world’s annual production of petroleum. Cut off from the rest of Oman by approximately 75 miles of the United Arab Emirates, the Musandam increasingly attracts foreign visitors, who come to see the dramatic and thrillingly inhospitable coastal scenery, scuba dive and observe the large number of dolphins and whales that frequent its waters. Ancient villages dot the peninsula here and there; the ruins of one seemingly inaccessible cliffside settlement can be glimpsed as one paraglides down to Zighy Bay.