Yacht rental in Dubai Marina

Why the channel is worth twelve minutes of your charter

Charter time runs berth to berth, and the first and last twelve minutes of every Dubai Marina booking are spent inside the harbour at low speed. On a two-hour charter that is nearly half an hour of what you paid for, which sounds like a poor deal until you have done it.

The Marina was built to be looked at from the water. From the promenade you see the tower you are standing under and the one opposite; from the middle of the channel you see the whole thing at once, a continuous wall of glass on both banks closing overhead, moving past at walking pace. Cayan Tower's ninety-degree twist only resolves properly from here. You cannot get this view from any road, any restaurant or any observation deck.

It is better on the way back. The channel after dark, with every tower lit and the water holding the reflection, is the single best stretch of an evening charter and it comes free with the shortest booking on the price list.

What the Marina berth saves you

Boarding here rather than at Dubai Harbour or further down the coast is worth about twenty minutes each way, and it is the reason most charters on this coast leave from the Marina. You are five minutes on foot from covered parking at Dubai Marina Mall or Pier 7, with restaurants either side of the pontoon and a metro station ten minutes away.

The one thing worth knowing is which bank you need. The Marina is a canal with pontoons on both sides and a limited number of crossing points, so standing on the promenade watching your boat on the far side is a genuinely common way to lose ten minutes. Open the berth pin the evening before and park on that side.

Who charters from here, and who should not

This is the right departure point for anything up to about 85ft and for any group whose day is the Marina, JBR, Bluewaters and the Palm. That covers the large majority of charters, and it is why the fleet berths here.

It is the wrong one if you are chartering something over about 100ft, which cannot use the channel and berths at Dubai Harbour instead — a different place ten minutes away, with its own parking and no promenade. It is also the wrong starting point if the Creek and old Dubai are what you came for; those are dhow routes from Deira or Al Seef, and no charter yacht from the Marina reaches them.