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ShareBy Mahmoud Zakaria
If you are looking for excitement and adventure, the story of the “Sons of Sindbad” will thrill you to the core. The Sons of Sindbad were Kuwaiti sailors skilled in the arts of sea navigation, as described by Alan Villiers. Villiers (1903-1982) was an Australian marine scientist and the author of the book “The Sons of Sindbad”. He undertook a long voyage with Kuwaiti sailors that lasted approximately nine months, from the port of Aden in Yemen to Kuwait between 1938 and 1939.
Villiers boarded a Kuwaiti dhow called Bayan, captained by al-noukhada Ali Al-Najdi. Villiers admired the Kuwaiti sailors and was eager to learn the arts of sea navigation from Captain Najdi. He spent the entire voyage learning from him, writing and recording the events of the journey on a daily basis throughout the nine months as the boat moved from one port to another. Sometimes the dhow carried passengers; other times, it traded various goods.
After the end of the trip and the boat’s return to Kuwait, Villiers stayed in Kuwait for another four months before leaving for London. The following year, in 1940, Villiers published the events of the trip in a book called “The Sons of Sindbad”. The ministry of information translated this valuable book in 1981. The book is considered to be of great historical value because it documents the maritime, social and even political history of Kuwait.
Villiers writes in the book: “The boat pushed from Bahrain across the coral reefs to Kuwait, in the most exciting and dramatic part of the journey. When daylight came on the second day, there was not a single boat in sight. In a shallow sea, and among a number of small divers’ boats filled with sailors sitting on the decks of their boats, shucking oysters, Najdi was saying, ‘Those boats used to be the fleet of Qatif and Dareen, and their number has diminished due to the recession.’
“The sailors exchanged greetings with these divers: ‘We asked them about their condition and their catch, but they only answered with the usual phrase (God is generous).’ When Najdi asked them whether they had seen any other large boats, they answered in the negative and added that three or four boats had passed by them a few days before we did, but Najdi was adamant that none of them could have dared to sail past those barrier reefs.”
Villiers visited Kuwait again in 1967 in response to an invitation from the ministry of information. He met his friends, sailors Najdi and Hamad bin Salem, and gifted them a collection of new photos from the trip.
