GDN interview- Nabil Al-Busaidi “Sultan of Snow” -First Arab To Walk To the North Pole
The GDN- Gulf Daily News; recently featured a 2 page spread article on Nabil / Nabs “The Sultan of Snow” After he became the first arab to walk to the north magnetic pole:
POLAR bear encounters, visions of the dead and risking his life for a bathroom stop at -80C – it’s all in a day’s work for the Gulf’s newest hero, the Sultan of Snow.
London-born Omani Nabil “Nabs” Al Busaidi has just returned from the toughest experience of his life: a 650km, 20-day trek that saw him become the first GCC Arab to reach the Magnetic North Pole.
The journey pitted the 39-year-old Bahrain resident against some of the most inhospitable conditions known to man.
Expedition
He reached his destination on April 29 with his Team Oman, which was competing in the Polar Race – an expedition covering more than 350 nautical miles over sea ice and artic islands on foot and ski.
Racers started out at Resolute Bay in Nunavut, Canada – one of the northernmost inhabited settlements – and finshed four checkpoints later at the Magnetic North Pole.
Initial reports suggested his team came first, but while they were the first to reach the Magnetic North Pole – Nabs and his teammates were actually placed third overall, since the race uses a time trial system similar to that seen in the Tour de France.
If that wasn’t enough for the former British Army officer and three-time competitor in the winter British Biathlon Championships, he has just been voted 97th in arabianbusiness.com’s list of the world’s most influential Arabs.
“You know what? I am proud, but I’m also embarrassed,” he told the GDN after learning of his newfound fame.
“I was at the Nadeen School (to deliver a talk) and all these children were thrilled and gave me this plaque which describes me as a hero – it’s crazy.”
Mr Al Busaidi looks remarkably well for a man who hasn’t slept properly in weeks.
Apart from a slight limp that he attributes to days of extreme-weather boots rubbing on the tips of his toes, mild frost-nip to his fingers and toes and a wind-burnt nose, his thick beard is the only sign that just a week ago he was battling against incredible odds, thousands of miles away on the Arctic pack.
“I’m feeling surprisingly good actually,” he revealed.
“I thought I’d be a lot worse, but I’m not too bad – not as sore as I thought I would be anyway.
“Of course, there’s this feeling of an immense sense of achievement, but I haven’t really had time to enjoy it.
“We arrived at the North Pole, I planted the Omani flag and then we all rushed into the tent as quickly as possible and slept – none of us had rested in 24 hours!”
Remarking upon the conditions that he and the other participants had to cope with, Mr Al Busaidi said it was almost impossible to imagine the sorts of temperatures they had to survive in.
“The only way I could describe the cold is by comparing it with what would happen if you put your hand in a flame – it burns instantly,” he said.
“Well, if you put your hand in the amount of cold we had to experience your skin dies instantly.
“Even the specialist extreme-weather clothing wasn’t enough to keep us going – you had to be constantly moving otherwise you weren’t warm enough. The heat generated through moving kept us alive.
“As you can imagine, this made things like going to the toilet almost impossible; you risked your life completing the most mundane or normal tasks!”
Mr Al Busaidi said the situation wasn’t helped by the fact that living in the Gulf meant he was used to higher temperatures than other participants.
His body had to cope with the shock of an additional 20C temperature drop compared to his competitors.
He experienced whiteouts and hallucinations as a result of the extreme conditions, making an already arduous and hazardous journey that bit more difficult and dangerous.
“I saw dead people and other participants that weren’t actually there – it was pretty bad,” he said.
“Whiteouts too. Imagine walking along in low-contrast, constantly tripping and falling?
“Your eyes are telling you to walk up a slope, while your inner-ear tells you to keep walking flat. All this as you constantly fight bouts of motion sickness.
“On the last day, when we walked 50km in one day without sleep, the effects were the most severe – we were falling asleep while we walked. We were all hallucinating and walking around like we were drunk!”
Keeping the adventurers company on their trip were some of the Arctic’s locals – polar bears that offered another hazard for the expedition.
“Overall, we had five encounters with polar bears,” he said.
“In three of them we had to use firearms and in one a team had to shoot and injure a polar bear.
“One encounter occurred as we were busy filming our documentary and a team member started screaming at us from 400 metres away.
“We were wondering why she was being so noisy if she knew we were about to film!
“We looked up and saw this white movement which we soon realised was a polar bear. We fired off a bear-banger (a blank, noisy shell with a magnesium flash designed to frighten the bear), but it deployed in the muzzle – knocking us over and deafening us all instead.
“At the time I thought: ‘I don’t need to scare myself, I’m already scared! I need to scare that massive bear!’ But, of course, being 400 metres away, the bear didn’t even notice.”
It turned out the creature was simply crossing paths with the team and soon fled after further bear-bangers were fired, but upon reflection Mr Al Busaidi said the situation could have turned nasty at any second.
However, when asked if he was considering an assault on the world’s other two poles – Mount Everest or the South Pole – Mr Al Busaidi was defiant.
“Are you kidding me?” he asked. “This has put me off for life!
“I’d like to do something similar in the future, but I’m not sure I’d do something so cold.
Journey
“I’ve even thought about doing something similar to Lebanese explorer Maxime Chaya and journey to the Geographic North Pole. But I’ve been to the North Pole already – do I really need to go again?
“I did say after my first marathon that I’d never do something like that again and two years later I was running a marathon almost every day – so never say never, or one day you’ll end up doing something even more stupid.”
