Handpicked experience · Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi, UAE
Three evening hours on the water in the boat type this coast lived by before oil, when fleets sailed out for months and divers worked the pearl banks on a rope with nothing to breathe from.
Hop aboard a traditional wooden dhow and sail in Abu dhabi
Indulge in a delicious international buffet dinner
Saver the exquisite dishes along with the views of the city
An evening sailing along the city waterfront in a traditional wooden vessel
Eating while the shoreline moves past
Somewhere comfortable to sit whichever way the humidity goes
The hour when the towers switch from silhouette to light
Sheltered sailing, without the motion of the open sea
The vessel type that carried this coast's pearling trade
An evening dhow cruise in Abu Dhabi with dinner served on board, sailing the sheltered water along the city's waterfront. Three hours, most of it at the speed of a boat that was never designed to hurry, and the interesting part is what you are sitting in.
A dhow is the traditional wooden vessel of these waters, and before oil this was what Abu Dhabi ran on. Fleets went out to the pearl banks for months at a stretch in the hot season, and the diving was done without any breathing equipment at all: down a weighted rope, a clip on the nose, a basket, and back up — again and again through the day, for weeks.
Almost the entire adult male population of the coast went out with those fleets. The industry ended within a decade when cultured pearls arrived from Japan and the wider economy collapsed in the 1930s, which left this coastline extremely poor and about twenty years away from finding oil.
Traditional builders here worked without plans. The shipwright set out the hull by eye and by memory, and the planking went up first, with the internal frames fitted afterwards to a shape that already existed — the reverse of how European boats are built, where the skeleton comes first and the skin is nailed onto it.
Older hulls were not nailed at all but sewn, the planks stitched together with coir cord from coconut husk. What you are dining on descends from that: a form refined by centuries of use rather than by drawing office.
From the water you get the whole waterfront in one piece, and the contrast does the work: a skyline that is barely two generations old, seen from a shape that has been sailing this coast for more than a thousand years. Sunset falls behind the towers, the palace and hotel frontages light up, and the city reads as what it is — a very new place built by people whose grandparents worked from boats like this one.
An evening sailing with dinner served on board, usually as a buffet, with an open upper deck and a cooled saloon below. The water inside the breakwater is calm, so this is not a rough trip in any normal weather. Evenings are warm for most of the year and humid in summer; the upper deck is the place to be from sunset onwards. Modest dress is expected on board, and swimming is not part of it.
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The traditional wooden sailing vessel of the Gulf and western Indian Ocean, used here for trading, fishing and above all pearling.
Fleets stayed out for months in the hottest part of the year, with divers working from dawn to dusk on a weighted rope.
None. They went down on a rope holding their breath, wearing a clip on the nose, and repeated the dive dozens of times a day.
Cultured pearls from Japan arrived at the same time as the economic collapse of the 1930s, and the trade disappeared within about a decade.
By eye, without drawings, with the outer planking assembled first and the internal frames fitted afterwards to the shape already made.
Older hulls in this tradition were stitched with cord made from coconut husk rather than fastened with nails.
Not usually. The route stays inside sheltered water along the city front, so the sailing is calm in normal conditions.
The open upper deck once the sun is down; the cooled saloon below is the alternative in high summer humidity.