Dhow Trip in the Gulf

It sounds so exotic, traveling in a dhow, out into the Persian Gulf, sails filled with the wind, birds wheeling overhead… however, things have changed. The sails are gone, the dhows are now fitted with engines which propel the boat at a respectable speed – you notice the cooling breeze but also the non-ending drone of the engine. I was quite surprised to see that the deck is not flat….it’s actually convex – good because the water would all rush to the sides, keeping the floor drier. Now the problem is they’ve covered it with outdoor carpet – nice under the feet but it tends to stay wet.

The first part of the trip was spent at the dock. We have moved to another part of the world and things work differently here. We had the people, we had the water and juice, people brought their picnic lunches and binoculars to watch for birds but the ice….was supposed to be delivered at 11:30….wasn’t…called…be there at 12:00…waited…as 12:30 we finally left. I’m sure there was a van driving around sometime later with a bunch of ice in the back…melting.

This is a shot of our sister ship (with the Doha Skyline) – they were virtually identical except on top – they had more cushions! You can see the nice covered areas and long benches which made it very easy for everyone to have a great seat. While I think they could have held more people, it really was nice to have the space to move around, upstairs for better pictures and back down for the shade. It really wasn’t a hot day, though if you stayed up top all the time you would have thought differently. The wonderful breeze kept it delightful throughout the trip.