Boating, floating restaurant add charm to Oman's Wadi Darbat

Surrounded by mountains from all four sides, the only escape here is greenery, waterfalls and cool breeze. Even before people could look for searching the source of the draft amid covered area, they lose track of their thought and start indulging in the piece of nature which keeps them occupied, not letting them go as per their plans.

“Yes it happened with me. I had made a chart of the places and had given 30 minutes to Wadi Darbat. My children and wife enjoyed the place so much that we ended up staying here for two hours. We did boating, enjoyed barbeque on boat and sat leisurely for a while before moving to other destinations,” said Ali Muqbali who came from Ibri for one week stay in Salalah.

Since Salalah witnessed good khareef this year, water has accumulated in trenches, which have emerged as proper channels for boating. It is a good sight to see so many well-equipped boats to entertain the tourists. Earlier, the boats were a few boats in Wadi Darbat, but this time the visitors have choice of two three outlets to choose, boat and even enjoy barbeque while boating.

Yusuf Shanfari, an entrepreneur, a diver and a marine enthusiast, came out with the idea of barbeque on the boat. His barbeque boat named BBQ Donuts is a big hit among the Wadi Darbat visitors.

Since he already has well-equipped boats for dolphin watching in Taqah, he thought of introducing something new at Wadi Darbat to entertain the visitors better and expand his business as well.

His two wooden boats are in great demand this season, and those who love to have the fun of doing barbeque while boating have the option of a floating barbeque restaurant.

“The barbeque boat has a capacity of about 15 people. It is fitted with safety kits approved by the authorities. I had this boat in Taqah. So I thought like bringing it in Wadi Darbat and I am amazed over the response,” said Yusuf.

Yusuf calls for adding more facilities at the tourist sites in Salalah to attract more tourists and offer them the best of the facilities. “It has potential to create new jobs for the young entrepreneurs. But the thing is, they should monitor their businesses on their own instead of leaving the whole management on someone else,” he said.

Known as a successful entrepreneur, Yusuf plans to expand his tourism project, but he doesn’t want to announce them now.

“I will announce them as and when they are implemented,” he said and added that he was really happy over his Wadi Darbat boating and floating restaurant project," he said.