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Qeshm Noruz Sayyad Festival in Qeshm/Salakh
In late July or early August, Qeshm Island's fishing villages, including Salakh, observe Nowruz-e Sayyad, the fishermen's new year, refraining from catching or eating seafood, painting livestock with red gelak mud before leading them to shore, and swimming together in the sea for purification and good health.
Nowruz-e Sayyad, meaning the fishermen's new year, is observed in the last days of July or first days of August on Qeshm Island, a date that despite the word nowruz in its name sits in the height of summer rather than the March spring new year, and the tradition is said to run back more than six hundred years among Persian Gulf fishing communities.