Drama of the sea
The water’s entrance here at Caves is an ankle-deep ledge of rock and coral from which you step off into the clutches of the Red Sea. Beneath and behind you as soon as you enter, the reef wall recedes into a long, dark cavity which lends the spot its name.
Above where the cave would be, I was sitting on a Bedouin-style kilim watching heads bob in the water. A group of divers was preparing to get out, but this was a more challenging task than getting in. Gusts of wind drove breakers against the shallow ledge. A short while earlier, some scuba divers had managed to get out, crawling and clambering to their feet, struggling under the weight of their tanks and the force of the waves. But the divers I now watched were of a different species: tankless, with colourful snorkels and beautifully long fins. Waiting by the ledge, they took off their fins and held onto them. A wave came and passed. Another came, and one diver rose with its crest and plopped ashore. The remaining heads continued bobbing, and with each wave a few more were deposited onto the ledge. As though by instinct, the word seals formed at the tip of my tongue.
It wouldn’t be the last time watching Dahab Freedivers, an internationally renowned freediving school, that I’d be struck by an image of humans as marine mammals. Dahab has often been called the mecca of freediving, though it may be just as true to call this small town the freediving capital of the world. There is in its freediving community (which numbers in the hundreds) a wealth of experience and an openness that brings freedivers from around the world to its shores. I sought out this community as part of a wider project to document stories from Egypt’s Red Sea, and was generously invited to join Dahab Freedivers in their second annual freediving fun festival.
Carlos Diezel, the manager at Dahab Freedivers and a Brazilian national record holder, explained the inspiration behind the festival as we zipped through the coast on the bed of a pick-up truck. The transport to and from dive sites, seated among dripping wetsuits and precariously placed fins, was the only time we could find for an interview. He told me that competitive freedivers get so occupied with line diving that they could go months without enjoying any of Dahab’s numerous underwater sites. At the same time, freediving’s growing popularity was attracting those who wanted to do more than just dive deeper; students who also wanted to use their newfound skills to explore reefs and wrecks at shallower depths. There was, in other words, a gap, and the typical courses offered by most freediving schools was not filling it. So, Dahab Freedivers put together a five-day programme where a diverse group of students could freedive together to have fun and explore the sea, as perhaps a scuba diver would.
There is an argument to be made about exploring the sea through freediving as opposed to scuba diving. The lack of breathing apparatus means freediving is far quieter and does not release curtains of bubbles into the water, allowing for closer interactions with marine life. That being said, freediving is a sport – and a demanding one. To improve requires physical adaptation but also introspection. Freedivers focus intensely on their breathing, on relaxing, on trying to enter an almost meditative state before a dive. There are no tanks full of air to sustain them underwater. There is, instead, a natural diving reflex (whereby the body reroutes oxygen to vital organs like the brain) embedded in all mammals including humans, and freediving activates it.
Having to resort to the body’s own nature, and freed from constrictive scuba gear, the sea becomes a stage and freedivers a part of the performance. At Caves, the natural conditions provided a setting fit for a BBC Earth montage, and the freedivers, in doing as nature does, appeared like seals riding the waves out of the water. Another time, on a warm night when Sinai’s waters lost their blue-emerald gleam and turned primordial, the scene was threaded with sinister undertones. Beneath the water’s surface the soupy darkness quickly enveloped the descending divers, most of whom kept their flashlights turned off.
Only once, far beneath the surface, were all the flashlights turned on, and in that moment their white beams shot upwards like searchlights from a sunken city. In the randomness of their motion, a slice of light revealed the silhouette of a figure gliding motionlessly in the depths. There was in its solitude, in its silvery, elongated form, an ominous familiarity. A spike of fear overcame my imagination. In the end it was only a wandering freediver, but the effect was lasting. Where else can person and environment blend so seamlessly together?
Early on the third day of the festival we headed to Dahab’s Blue Hole. We were eager to beat the usual crowd of tourists, and at eight in the morning the row of café-restaurants lining the bay of the Blue Hole were all quiet except one. It was a place named Aquamarina, run by a man named Ali, and it was alive at this hour because its main clientele are freedivers. Plastered on the walls were posters and photos of freediving schools, on one wall hung retro-looking monofins (one of which was signed), and seated on the kilims and cushions and around the low tables were freedivers. Some practiced their breathing, others gave instruction or discussed recent competitions and achievements, and still others recouped from their morning dives with plates of grilled kofta.
Although the Blue Hole is 20 kilometres north of Dahab, it is the spiritual heart of Dahab’s freediving world. The reason is simple. Within a minute’s walk from the café we are in the sea, and a few steps later we are floating over an ancient sinkhole above 92 meters of water. This accessibility is highly prized by those who dive deep. For those who dive very deep, however, the fact that the Blue Hole is ‘only’ 92 metres is compensated by the fact that it is accessible all year round. Shielded from the wind by hills on three sides, it rarely experiences severe weather, and is almost always sunny and warm.
Perhaps because of its accessibility, Dahab’s Blue Hole is also the deadliest dive spot in the world. Even conservative estimates place the lives claimed by the Blue Hole at over a hundred. Many of the fatalities are associated with ‘the Arch’, a tunnel located 55 metres deep that has been likened to an underwater cathedral by those who have seen it. The depths tempt many, though, and deaths due to nitrogen narcosis are unfortunately common. Overlooking the Blue Hole, a nearby hillside is dotted with plaques commemorating some of the lives lost here. One plaque in particular catches the attention of our group. It was here that Dahab Freedivers co-founder, Stephen Keenan, died in 2017.
Stephen’s death sent shockwaves across the freediving world. Stephen learned to freedive when he came to Dahab in 2009. By 2013 he had become a highly regarded safety diver for saving the life of Alexei Molchanov during the latter’s world record attempt in Greece. Only a few years later, Stephen would die in the Blue Hole saving the life of another world record holder, Alessia Zecchini, during her attempt to become the second-ever female freediver to cross the Arch.
The Deepest Breath, a 2023 Netflix documentary, tells the story of Alessia and Stephen. It is captivatingly told, stressing the extreme sides of the sport and the death-defying depths which its top athletes pursue. One leaves it with the sense that you must be a bit crazy to freedive. What Dahab Freedivers has put together, however, shows that there is much more to the sport, even for the casual freediver. There is childlike fun to be had, and a way of being in the sea that is an exercise in expression, in rediscovering a long-lost natural connection. Maybe you do have to be a bit crazy to do it. Either way, there awaits the drama of the sea.
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