Baby, we did it!

IN an incredible test of physical, mental and emotional endurance adventurer Sami Kooheji last week became the first person to sail from Bahrain to Dubai non-stop in a dinghy.

Sunburned, salt-burned and exhausted, the 23-year-old Bahraini made sporting history when he landed on Dubai’s Jumeirah beach on Thursday after spending a gruelling 62 hours, 10 minutes and 12 seconds covering 550km of open sea.
Battling eight foot swells, 32 knot winds, poisonous sea snakes and scorching sun, Sami arrived to a hero’s welcome and a throng of the world’s media.
But it was a journey that was fraught with emotion, difficult decisions and occasionally, sheer terror.
Sami set off from Sitra in his laser dinghy on Monday with a support team of seven sailing in a motorboat and a 48 foot yacht supplied by ART Marine.
The team included his coach Kasim Ben Jemia, GulfWeekly photographer T. Andrew Morton and Sami’s brother Adam, 30, who was the only person with the authority to pull the plug on the challenge – and at times the perilous journey seemed impossible to complete.      
Just nine hours into the challenge – at 2.30am on Tuesday when Sami reached international waters north of Qatar – a storm struck.
“My boat looked as if it could be taken out at any moment. I was terrified, there were huge waves and I couldn’t see a thing. It was like being stuck in a black hole,” revealed Sami. “If I had capsized, by the time the support boats stopped I would have been left behind. We thought if we could get through that first night, we could get through anything.”
With no light and waves the size of small houses pounding Sami’s boat which measures a mere 4x1m, his race to Dubai seemed unattainable.
Jordan Stringer, 22, a friend of Sami’s and one of the support team, said: “He was panicking and screaming at us. We strapped on our life jackets and Adam said get ready to get off the boat. We were bailing out water and throwing out anything that was weighing us down. I prayed a few times that night.”
But after three punishing
hours dawn broke and the storm subsided.
“When the sun came up Sami got his second wind and started to sail really hard,” said Mr Stringer.
Fortified by a fillet steak prepared by Mr Stringer’s father Alan, 49, another member of the team, Sami covered good ground. 
But by the afternoon the wind died down to nothing, and Sami was forced to sail at a frustrating one mile per hour.
“It was terrible. I was moving so slowly I thought I’d never get there,” Sami said.
Then, as the blazing sun rose high in the sky, the most emotional decision of the journey had to be made. Over the yacht’s crackly satellite phone, Adam was informed that his seven-and-a-half month pregnant wife, Isidora, may give birth at any moment.
“My brother was desperate to get back and be with his wife. He wanted to take the motorboat and leave but it would have jeopardised his own safety,” explained Sami, “emotions were running really high, and it was an incredibly difficult decision to make. But we decided to carry on. It was the only safe and logical thing to do.”
Now the race was on, not just to make it into the history books … but to get Adam back to Dubai and on a flight to his wife’s bedside.
Racing against the clock, they almost reached the half-way point by 9pm on Tuesday – which is also one of the Gulf’s busiest shipping lanes. “There was a huge convoy of dhows,” explained Mr Stringer. “It was really hard but we made it through.”
Sami had by this point sailed non-stop with no sleep.
“I was exhausted and tried to sleep, but there were a lot of porpoises circling my boat and I couldn’t sleep because they were splashing so near to me,” he said. 
Exhausted, Sami accidentally knocked his GPS system into the sea. But he eventually fell asleep, catching the only two hours he would have until he reached Dubai.
In pitch black they set off again and weaved their way through oil fields, desperately trying to keep a minimum of half a mile between themselves and the rigs.
But the winds were low and Sami was able to sail close to the support boats. Throughout the night the support crew and Sami told each other jokes to keep his spirits up.
“I was telling a joke that no one could hear but they pretended to be able to, and laughed hysterically to cheer me up,” he said. “But I began to freak out because there were all these other boats overtaking us, and I was struggling to keep my boat stable. But everyone told me to calm down and then for some reason we started singing In the Jungle which kept my spirits up.”
By dawn the next day, Sami was in intense pain and covered in blisters, dried sweat and salt. But he was unable to cool off in the water as poisonous sea snakes were circling around him.
“I saw the snakes and decided to stay in my boat and keep my head down,” he said.
As the morning progressed, the weather turned in their favour.
“The waves were huge, and the winds were strong and I enjoyed it,” said Sami. “The waves were keeping me awake and I didn’t feel the heat so much and I thought we’d reach Dubai waters by sunset.”
Sami’s race to get his brother back to dry land as soon as possible had paid off and at 7am they reached UAE waters and could see the lights of Dubai. But they were still at least six hours away from completing the challenge.
Now 52 hours into the journey, heat and lack of sleep started to kick in and Sami began to falter.
“He started to behave erratically; he was very panicky, delirious and talking gibberish. He was being quite challenging and aggressive, but he wanted help,” said Mr Stringer Sr. “I tried to talk him through the pain and assess his mental state.”
Eventually at midnight they reached the Palm Island. But once again the wind turned against them.
“I was less than a kilometre from Dubai but I couldn’t get in because there was no wind, and Adam was desperate to see his wife, Isi,” said Sami.
“Everyone was very emotional. Sami and Adam were almost in tears,” said Mr Stringer, “we were so close yet so far.”
“That was the worst feeling,” said Sami. “I was in a lot of pain with really bad blisters and rashes. I couldn’t sit, I couldn’t kneel and my muscles were in agony. I was totally screwed up. I couldn’t focus and I was very tearful. We were just so close and we could see the Burj Al Arab all lit up.”
As frustration and emotion reached boiling point, they were forced to drop anchor and wait until the approval arrived from the authorities for them to come in.
They floated around until the morning when Sami and Adam’s father, Wahab, sailed out to visit his sons, and the family enjoyed an emotional reunion at sea.
At 11am they finally made it to the shores of the Jumieriah Beach Hotel and hundreds of friends, family and media. 
Impossibly weak and exhausted, Sami stepped from his boat into the arms of his girlfriend, Carrie Holland.
“It was so great to see her, I had missed her so much,” said Sami, “when you’re at sea for so long like that, you tend to realise that you’ve taken people who are close to you for granted.”
Incredibly, a close friend of Adam’s was able to charter him a private jet to get him back to his wife. The following morning, Isi gave birth to a 2.1kg baby boy. They have named him Samuel. He is being looked after at a special care baby unit in Bahrain.
“It’s the best prize ever,” said Sami. “It was such a worry that neither the baby nor we would make it. But we did and it’s been the best weekend and I can’t wait to see my nephew.”
As the Kooheji family celebrate the safe return of two sons, and the arrival of another, Bahrain is celebrating its entry into the sailing record books.

Special Report
By -RdS-
editor@gulfweekly.com