Maritime fanatics will enjoy this fascinating museum with its impressive collection of large, scale-model dhows (traditional cargo boats), sailing equipment and boards detailing the history of seafaring in the area. Al Hashemi II, the huge wooden dhow adjacent to the museum, is the largest handmade wooden boat on earth, measuring a world-record-breaking 80.4m long and 18.7m wide and weighing an estimated 2500 tonnes. The museum has a 2002 Guinness Book of Records certificate to prove it.
Commissioned by Husain Marafie, owner of the Radisson Blu hotel, Al Hashemi II was completed in 1998 from mahogany and ekki logs from Cameroon, planks from Ivory Coast and pine logs from Oregon. It’s worth taking a five-minute walk inside the lavish, parquet-floored interior, which is used for conferences and banqueting.
Al Boom, a smaller dhow in the complex, is a restaurant; and a hugely atmospheric place for dinner. The complex is next to the Palm Gardens hotel inside the grounds of the Radisson Blu hotel.
