Al Bateen Beach

This guide to Al Bateen Beach in Abu Dhabi traces the fishing village and dhow-building yard that once lined this shore, where elder Saleh Farah Abdulrahman recalled a life split simply between earthmen and fishermen. You'll hear about the shipwrights who built wooden trading vessels by hand, without blueprints, and the tradition claiming a single waterline drawn on a finished hull would prove itself true the moment the boat touched water. It follows the dhows' voyages carrying dates, fish, timber and spices to East Africa and India, in the years before oil.