Dhows are long, flat, wooden vessels used in the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea, and they’ve docked at the Creek since the 1830s when the Maktoums established a free-trade port, luring merchants away from Persia. Today’s dhows trade with Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Oman, India, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan, and you’ll see them precariously loaded with everything from air-conditioners to chewing gum to car tyres, almost all of it re-exported after arriving by air or container ship from countries like China, South Korea and Singapore. Try to chat to the sailors if you can – if you find one who speaks English, you may learn that it takes a day to get to Iran by sea and seven days to Somalia, or that dhow captains earn as little as Dh400 a month. If your sailor friend is in a chatty mood, he may even regale you with real-life pirate stories. The gangs of thieves that stalk the waters off Yemen and Somalia sometimes make life very tough for Dubai’s hard-working dhow sailors.