The first thing you see of Ehdaa Al-Barwani are bubbles. More and more ripple on the turquoise-blue surface of the water until the broad grey streak that runs through her dark hair finally appears. “Are you all right?” she asks her diving partner, who surfaces next to her. “Yes,” exclaims the Dutchman after pulling the regulator of his oxygen cylinder out of his mouth: “That was great!” The two spent almost an hour among the rocks and reefs of the Daymaniyat Islands, around 20 kilometres northwest off the coast of the Omani capital Muscat. In addition to numerous schools of fish, they saw moray eels and leopard sharks. “And, as almost always, stingrays were hiding in the crevices,” says Al-Barwani.

The 38-year-old diving instructor knows her way around the nine uninhabited islands in the Gulf of Oman. It was declared a nature reserve in 1996. Al-Barwani usually visits it several times a week with her students, showing them and those with a diving licence the spectacular underwater world: colonies of hawksbill turtles, yellow-tailed barracudas, mackerel, perch, cuttlefish and starfish cavort around the numerous colourful shimmering soft and hard corals. If you are lucky, you may encounter dolphins on the way to the dive sites and even whale sharks in late summer

Despite their diversity, the Daymaniyat Islands and the other diving spots along Oman’s more than 3,000 kilometres of coastline are considered an insider tip – and Edhaa al-Barwani is a rarity in the young diving world of the Sultanate. ‘Dee’, as everyone calls her, is the first and so far only local diving instructor in the country. Dive after dive, she fights to change that. Thanks to her, more and more Omani women are daring to try the sport, overcoming fears and social barriers. And they are getting to know a new paradisiacal side of their homeland – which Al-Barwani fights to protect every day. 

Even as a child, the wiry water sports enthusiast spent a lot of time on and in the ocean off the coast of Muscat, in the wadis, Oman’s numerous river valleys, or in public pools. She attended a private school in Oman and moved to Australia at the age of 17 to study. She took her first diving course during a visit home in her semester break. “I loved it,” remembers Al-Barwani. However, the young woman could never have imagined that diving would one day be more than just a hobby for her. After graduating, she worked in human resources and marketing for large Omani companies. “I was earning well and could have moved up,” she remembers. “But I wasn’t happy.” Dee resigned and started travelling: to Europe, East Africa and Southeast Asia. On a dive in Thailand, she observed clownfish hiding from predators in anemones and marvelled at parrotfish nibbling off algae and dead coral with their teeth, cleaning the reefs and creating the basis for new corals. “Everything interacted in this ecosystem,” enthuses Al-Barwani. Another time, a small whale shark suddenly swam towards them. The animal circled around her with interest for several minutes. “That was the moment when I finally knew what I wanted to do in the future!”

She trained as a diving instructor and travelled from country to country. In 2017, she took a job in Dhofar, the southernmost province of Oman. Like everywhere else, she actually only wanted to stay for one season. But once she arrived, she realised that there wasn’t a single female diving instructor in her home country. “I wanted to change that.” At the end of 2019, just a few months before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, she opened her own diving school, Aura Divers, in Muscat. She also offers women-only courses there. 

Although the Sultanate is considered liberal compared to neighbouring Gulf states, women are allowed to study, work, vote and hold important ministerial positions, traditional gender roles are widespread. In rural Oman in particular, many women live a secluded, private life with just their immediate family. They take care of the household and the children. Men and women tend to spend their leisure time separately. Excessively revealing clothing and close contact with the opposite sex outside of marriage are generally frowned upon. For many traditional fathers, brothers and husbands, it is unthinkable for a man to see a woman in a swimming costume or bikini and without a headscarf, or even to touch her during the so-called buddy check, the mutual inspection of equipment before every dive. And women themselves don’t feel comfortable being taught by men either, explains Al-Barwani

Her idea was therefore well received: she found customers immediately after opening. Even during the first, strict lockdown in Oman, numerous women signed up for the online theory course and came to her diving lessons as soon as Dee was allowed to offer tours again. “Back then, the team consisted of just me and my captain,” says Al-Barwani, who now has four employees, twice as many in the peak season between October and February. “I was surprised myself at how many women and girls contacted me back then,” she recalls. The young tourism company also survived the pandemic because of them: the women brought their families with them. And when guests were allowed to travel to the country again, the female tourists came. 

“I want to encourage women in particular to discover diving for themselves. Regardless of marital status or religion.” Al-Barwani herself is not religious. “But I believe, perhaps in a certain higher power.” Something that made Pepple run towards her on her birthday six years ago. When she’s not diving in the sea, she enjoys spending her free time with the mongrel. Pepple pulls harder on the dog lead, dragging his owner along a beach in a suburb of Muscat – past families picnicking on the sand, men playing football and women wearing long black abayas and hijabs as they stroll towards the Sayyida Fatima Bint Ali Mosque. 

Sultan Qabus bin Said had it built in Oman, along with numerous places of worship. No one has influenced the country on the eastern flank of the Arabian Peninsula as much as him. In 1970, the then 30-year-old overthrew his unpopular father with the help of the British. As the new Sultan, he took advantage of the wealth that the recently discovered oil had flushed into the state coffers and radically modernised Oman. Qabus bin Said, who died in 2020 and whose portrait still hangs in almost every public building today, distributed free food, had schools, universities, hospitals and roads built in the country and brought electricity and water to even the most remote villages. He established free healthcare, created jobs, organised nationwide literacy courses and free education – especially for women. His credo was that if you educate them, you educate the people. He repeatedly emphasised how crucial the participation of women was in the creation of a modern, sustainable state.

Edhaa Al-Barwani’s mother, who grew up in the former Omani colony of Zanzibar and later studied in England, was one of the first female police officers in the new Sultanate. “Being the first seems to run in the blood of us women in the family“. says Dee, grinning proudly.

Despite the Sultan’s support, there are still too few women in leadership roles or successful self-employed people. “We have to be particularly strong,” says Al-Barwani. She climbs up the narrow steps of her boat with a shipyard employee. It has been lying on dry land for four weeks and is being repaired. A storm had damaged the engine and toilet room. Al-Barwani bends down and runs her red-painted fingers over the Aura Divers logo embedded in the wooden floor. She has had the lettering replaced. “Well, that looks better now,” she says. Then her otherwise friendly face turns serious: “When will the engine finally be ready?

After Dee made the decision to set up her own diving school, the first thing she did with her savings was to buy a 12 metre motorboat. In the months that followed, she covered the benches with light-coloured upholstery, built shelves and holders for the oxygen tanks and clad the high side walls with wood, behind which women are protected from prying eyes. “I had to teach myself a lot of things and I made mistakes,” admits Al-Barwani. She once used the wrong paint colour, which peeled off after a few dips. “Nevertheless, it saved me money and nerves, especially at the beginning.”

Many of the other diving school owners come from traditional fishing families. Their fathers and grandfathers already owned their own boats. They know the best workshops and the fastest boat builders. Knowledge that they do not like to share with newcomers. Al-Barwani is also underestimated in the male sector. Many people find it hard to imagine that she also knows her way around engines and technology . If she complains about repairs, she is labelled hysterical. Diving students contact their male employees to make sure that there really won’t be a tour if Dee has cancelled it due to bad weather. “Others suggested that, as a woman, I should put on a colourful wetsuit so that they would have something pretty to look at underwater.”

Of course, she was always in despair: when she encountered particularly disrespectful behaviour, when she was artificially put off in a workshop or when she found out that she would have to replace her storm-damaged engine and rent boats from other diving schools until then. Sometimes she thought about giving up and selling everything. “But I can’t and won’t do that,” says Al-Barwani. “I’ve achieved too much for that.” For the girls and women who enjoy diving today. But also by complaining to the nature conservation authority of the Daymaniyat Islands about fishing nets that get caught in the reefs and kill corals and fish. Or when she went diving in traditional dress and headscarf, collecting plastic waste. Images of the campaign went in national and international media. “We need to raise awareness and educate people about the dangers to our underwater world,” says Dee. This still works best when people see paradise and its destruction with their own eyes. Al-Barwani shows how much the reefs are suffering, where rubbish ends up and how corals in Oman are also bleaching due to the warming ocean. Afterwards, she hopes that her guests will fight harder preserve the ecosystem.

The day’s diving is over at the Daymaniyat Islands, the speedboat heads for Muscat harbour, slapping loudly on the waves. Wearing large sunglasses, Al-Barwani sits cross-legged on a bench in the bow of the boat and looks out over the water. Her biggest dream is to one day be the head of an all-Omani team of diving instructors. So far, no woman in her home country has followed her example and  her hobby into a career. Partly because there are safer and more lucrative jobs in the oil country of Oman. But the raw material is finite. The Sultanate is trying to minimise its dependence on it and diversify its economy. Investments, now led by Sultan Qabu’s cousin and successor Haitham bin Tarik, are increasingly flowing into the IT sector, the modernisation of the fishing industry and renewable energies. Tourism is being developed into one of the country’s most important economic sectors  In 2024, Oman presented itself at the International Tourism Exchange in Berlin. Instead of focusing on splendour, ostentation and skyscrapers like its Gulf state neighbours, the Sultanate is concentrating on its culture, old traditions and natural spectacles, such as those under water. 

Meanwhile, Al-Barwani is forging further plans: diving courses for people with disabilities, for example. Or her own dive shop. “There isn’t one in Oman,” she says. So far, everyone has had to import their equipment and send it abroad for maintenance or repair. “I see great potential there.” It would be another gap in the market that the Omani closes in her home country.