Is the future full of fab arrivals? You certainly get that now at Six Senses Zighy Bay at the tip of Musandam Peninsula in Oman. Guests can arrive by boat from Dibba, about 15 minutes away, but most take an up-down route. This allows two options: Drive or be driven up a heavily-zigzagged, mostly-paved route up to over 1,000 metres in stunning mountains, with sand-coloured rocks and few signs of greenery. Up there, awe-inspiring views on the other side reveal blue ocean and, at water’s edge, the green oasis that is the village-like resort. You can, alternatively, opt to paraglide down while strapped to the back of a professional—your trunks and bags are brought down by road.
Six Senses Zighy Bay is a hidden secret when it comes to authenticity as well as sustainability, though Greta and her ilk might not feel at home. This is the place for any-agers who follow modern luxury with nature—there is no plastic anywhere, but instead of giving you toothpaste in cheap-looking metal tubes, you get dinky little cork-stoppered bottles of toothpaste tablets. When the bottle’s finished, the glass is ground down with the plethora of empty Whispering Angels and repurposed, perhaps as cement for use around the estate. Kids help make them into take-home jewellery in the most impressive Earth Lab classes.
Wake up in any of the 82 villas and leap into your heated private pool (meanwhile, Villa 8 is right on the beach). Floors are polished stone from nearby Nizwa, and the ceilings are date palm sticks. Perfect WiFi and glass-fronted wine fridges—filled and correctly chilled—all add to a special feeling.
What’s also special is food—think just-caught tuna in a beach shack, dining sky-high atop the mountain, or Summer House’s outside staircase of exposed Nizwa rocks. Perhaps for dinner, Dibba Bay oysters and a ramen bowl with A5 Wagyu rib and bone marrow broth, paired with 2020 Sea Change sustainable cult wines, Syrah Rosé and Merlot.
Don’t miss a sustainability tour to understand the chain that sees water pulled from the sea, processed through rocks, then pumped to a million-litre storage 200 metres up the mountain and brought down as needed. See how food waste becomes compost for the well-labelled organic garden, and how torn towels evolve to horticulture pots.
Spend time at sea, lazing, biking, looking out into greenery, or playing Sudoku on one of the Technogym bikes. As always, the Six Senses spa is something special. One of the recent guest therapists was osteopath Anna Mattos, a leader in musculoskeletal dysfunctions, biomechanical realignment, and biodynamic cranial osteopathy (no, you don’t need to understand what all that means). Simply appreciate that merely a two-hour drive from Dubai leads to the eye-opening natural beauty and self-assessment that is, uniquely, Six Senses Zighy Bay.
All images courtesy of Six Senses.
