Catch if you can

Having different shades warm and cold currents, Dhofar Governorate is home to different fish species. It surprises section of visitors when they find huge difference in sea temperature from one place to another, and while digging for reasons they find presence of so many marine species spread all over. Dhofar’s coastal cities have huge deposit of marine heritage. Marine experts call for pro-active approach to make marine tourism more popular among the tourists, who visit Salalah mainly for authentic Arab experience. The cities of Salalah and Sadah hold special importance among the marine activity lovers because of variety they store. “While Salalah water is normally warm like most of the places in Dhofar, seawater in Sadah gives an entirely different feeling of cool and chill. A visitor looks for searching for a nearby boat after a dive into the sea due to unexpected chill that he gets,” said a tourist from Germany who loves fishing. Yousuf Mohammed al Shanfari, Managing Director of Around the Ocean, also admits Salalah’s strength in marine wealth. He calls for a pro-active approach to promote Salalah as an important marine entertainment destination. Due to his drive to do something different for this sector in Salalah, Yousuf al Shanfari’s marine activity enterprise is treated as one of the success stories for many others to emulate. For him Salalah is one of the best locations for recreational fishing in the Sultanate. “This is fishing for pleasure as also for competition and adds quickly to suggest that this area is entirely different from commercial fishing.” Yousuf started dolphin watching service with one boat in 2011 from Raysut Fishing Port with the help of some friends. He did not have any proper office to engage with his clients, but his service for Salalah was so unique that it picked up with word of mouth and people started contacting him. He gives full credit to hard work and clarity of vision while choosing his career and becoming successful. “I suggest entrepreneurs to come out with their own plans and not a copy paste of any other plan thinking ‘that plan is successful with him and it will be successful with me also’. Too many projects of same nature have limited scope of becoming successful simply because there are many competitors for the same cake.” He never gets tired while fishing because he has been fishing from his childhood and he has special attraction for sea and sea related activities. From no office in 2011, Yousuf has two offices at prime locations — one at Al Baleed Resort Salalah and another at Hawana Salalah. Yousuf keeps on motivating young entrepreneurs and takes active part in events that demands promotion of Salalah tourism as an icon of successful entrepreneur.   Kaushalendra Singh @patkaushal