I like that post title! 🙂
Nabil ‘Nabs’ al-Busaidi has become the first Omani/Arab/GCC-ian to reach the North Pole. He was with the Oman North Pole Expidition Team and they managed to beat 4 other teams to reach the North first amongst themselves. Nabs, JP & Claire sacrificed sleep, food and rest to do so. This did result in the them hallucinating and falling asleep while walking. Sounds like something I do everyday. Also, on the last-leg Nabs ‘man-hauled’ (is that a word) 50kg of equipment and walked 650 kms!
Nabs
My special interest in Nabs’ case comes from a seemingly random event in April last year. Sitting with a business associate (boss, more likely) in Qurum in a semi-business meeting, my associate recieved a phone call (after rejecting/silencing 20 of them). After talking for about 7-10 minutes, he ended the call & in way of apology explained that the call was from the Minister of Sport (my associate is a ‘heavily’ networked person). One of the chit-chats was about a young Omani who had been training in Bahrain & now was in final stages of his project and he wanted to reach the North & was enquiring as to how to get any media coverage and sponsorships. He was given due advice and an enquiry into a possible sponsorship by the Sports Ministry and so forth. At that time I was more awed by my BA’s seemingly-casual relationship with a Minister and forgoed the content.
Then this story started appearing in the news. I’d followed it from the start & now we see Nabil reaching his destination successfully. Kudos to him.
Edit: Nabs’ blog detailing account of the journey.
BUT, We have a problem.
Seems there have been other Arabs & GCC-ian there already. Is there some difference (type of approach/ascent etc) or has the Ministry/reporter managed a faulty press release? (Thanks to Rich for fixing me, wherein I linked to this)
Help!
-FK
The Fark Knight 
Perhaps I can help…Nabs went to the North Pole, Farouk summited Everest…apart from being some distance from each other, there is also about 29,000 vertical foot difference between the 2 places.
Both firsts, both fantastic achievements.
And it is a great title!
Thanks Rich!
Maybe I was high when I wrote all that!
x_x
-FK
*facepalm*
Applied duct tape in all the right places. There still is an unresolved problem of whodunnit first?
-FK
Just to clarify, I was the first Arab to walk to the magnetic North Pole. I was the first Omani to climb Mt. Vinson in the Antarctic. (a Kuwaiti and a Lebanese had been before me) I was hoping to be the first Omani to climb Mt Everest. (A Kuwaiti, Saudi and Lebanese had been before me, and after my accident, an Omani climbed Everest)