1993. United Arab Emirates, discovering the pirate coastline

Welcome to the special section “BAM 35 Years.” We are presenting “cult” articles from the Motor Boats archive, starting in 1990. A journey through time among stories unobtainable today, even in the great sea of the internet! A dive into the world of epic moments in motor boating. Here is one of the stories we were most passionate about.

Pirate coast

From Motor Boats 1993, no. 7, August, pp. 64-67.

United Arab Emirates: six hundred kilometers on the Persian Gulf, poised between past and present.

It is indeed the land of Simbad. In the sheltered bays the elegant shapes of the dhows, with their double prow and slender lateen sail, have for centuries been mirrored on these waters, ready to take flight across the Indian Ocean, centuries before the Europeans. The dhows had planking boards, teak or coconut palm wood, held together by ropes rather than nails. Many had two sails, one on the main mast and the other on the mizzen mast. Boats intended for merchant shipping in the 14th century were the size they are today with a maximum tonnage of 250 tons. The dhow faced the trade winds with agility; the rest was left to the skill of Arab sailors and the will of Allah. Today in the Emirates, despite the technology imported thanks to oil, shipwrights have passed their craft on to younger generations, continuing a tradition that has made seafaring history.

There are seven United Arab Emirates: Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Qawain, Ras Al Khaimah and Fujayrah. Subject since 1892 to the protectorate of Britain, they decided in December 1971 to form theUnion of the UAE. Dubai ‘s transformation from a small fishing town into the international economic center it is today is due to shrewd planning of oil revenues. The construction of ports, an airport, the most widely used in the Middle East, roads, hospitals, and schools is a one-time fairy tale due to the discovery of black gold deposits that transformed the ancient trade in spices, pearls, and sandalwood. Today Abu Dhabi, the largest sheikhdom in the Union, is the richest state in the world with an annual per capita income of around $30,000. Irrigation programs, implemented through a cyclopean desalination plant, have extended the cultivated area beyond the oases. Wheat, tobacco, tomatoes, eggplant and melons are the fruits of desert redemption while Gulf waters are still rich in shrimp, tuna, anchovies and sardines. Offshore, sharks, swordfish and sailfish are not uncommon. We are also in shopping heaven. The duty-free emporiums of Abu Dhabi and Dubai are now world famous. And you can shop in ultra-modern malls or venture into the souks where you can find virtually every kind of product, from cameras to VCRs to watches.

Dubai has the charm of a lagoon city, traversed by a saltwater canal, the Creek, that divides it from the town of Deira. In its waters, like a small Arab Venice, sail the abras, the city’s cabs, and the dhows of eastern seafaring traditions. The fish, spice and perfume markets follow one another on the lagoon, but in the picturesque Bastikia district are the shop windows of the suq adh-dhahab, the fabulous gold market. In the old part, dotted with patrician houses, you can observe an architectural curiosity unique to this part of the world. These are the aflaj, the “wind towers, one of the earliest air-conditioning systems, thin structures to deflect the wind inside the building. Behind this rich strip of land is the desert with its enchantments and magic. In front of the crackling fire, it is possible to let only the sounds, scents and colors of a real night in the desert filter through, with the stars at hand in the sky like an ink crystal. After dinner, some return to comfortable hotel rooms but it is best to sleep on pillows lying on the sand. In the cool hours of dawn, waking up is an unforgettable experience as the desert prepares to experience another day.

Desert experience is important for understandingDubai and the United Arab Emirates. In 1830, a branch of the Bani Yas tribe from theLiwa oasis in the territory of present-day Abu Dhabi abandoned nomadic life and settled on the ShindagahPeninsula. Modern Dubai was born this way. For those who come to these parts today, it is really hard to believe that all you see here is the product of only twenty years. In the long shadows of the evening, I watch the tepid grains slowly slip from my hand. “Desert sand is like a silken caress.” The words of an elderly Bedouin encountered along a track near Mali always come to mind when I indulge in perhaps the oldest gesture of desert men. A simple, soothing, almost mystical gesture. A legend runs through these parts, that 600-kilometer-long Pirate Coast that has come to be known as the United Arab Emirates. Back then, armed with terrible daggers and twisted scimitars, Arab privateers threw themselves at European ships plying the Persian Gulf. Along the beaches you can see the ruins of their watchtowers and the fortified strongholds from which they departed. Privateering epic that came to an end in the 19th century when British gunboats decided to stop this childish daring. But the ancient Bedouin legend has nothing to do with this bloody epic. It is rooted in the magic of the desert and speaks of a ghostly Bedouin village that lives on, forgotten by time and men, in the golden sands beyond the mythical Madam, in that region that is about to give way to the rocky range of the Hajar Mountains, overlooking the Gulf of Oman. As in the days of Simbad.

By G. Peroncini

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