Dhow Sunset Cruise

we booked a 'Dhow Sunset Cruise' excursion along the Omani coast in Muscat. The cruise took us from our departure point at Marina Bandar Al Rowdha (رسى بندر الروضة), a few miles south of Muscat (near Al Bustan and the Ritz Carlton Hotel), north along the coastline to the harbors of old Muscat and Matrah, and back again. The roundtrip took about three hours. The views were amazing, as was experiencing the cool air of the open sea at twilight.

A "dhow" is the name given to a range of a traditional Arabian wooden-hulled sailing vessels that have been used for fishing, trade, and transportation across the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean for centuries. The dhow is commonly known for two distinctive features: a triangular or lateen sail and for its stitched wooden construction. Stitched boats are made by sewing the hull boards together with fibers, cords or thongs - no nails or metal involved. The boats are hand-crafted of Burma teak and ghaff wood (a local desert tree), and while modern methods are now often used in the construction process, many traditional techniques still remain. Blueprints and schematics are rarely used. Rather, the knowledge of how to build these vessels is possessed by local shipbuilders, passed down from generation to generation.