I had an interesting visit to the workshop where exhibits for the new National Museum are being made.

From renovating old boats , through to making museum grade scale models of historical boats to creating pre-historic Omani craft based on archaeological excavations – its a painstaking job. Alessandro who is still working on his Dhow near Salalah explained the difficulty of restoring an old boat taken from one of the old fishing villages in Muscat.

I also enjoyed meeting Tuanie Ismail who sailed with the Jewel of Muscat to Singapore and is engaged in making detailed models of other well known craft from Oman.