Todayâs episode of The Mettleset Podcast is brought to you by New Balance
What do you do when youâre the only local woman teaching diving in your country, and the women who want to learn donât have a place where they feel comfortable?
For Ehdaa (Dee) Al-Barwani, you buy a secondhand yacht, strip it down yourself, and build one. Then you go diving in your Omani attire to show every woman watching that nothing is stopping her.
Host Dawn Barnable sat down with Dee, Omanâs first female PADI scuba instructor and the first woman to own a dive centre in Oman, to trace her path from a childhood on the Omani coast to backpacking through Asia and diving to fund her travels, to founding Aura Divers. Dee opens up about the dive that went viral overnight, close encounters with whale sharks and one very curious octopus, and the role models who shaped her: her mother, one of only four women in the Royal Oman Police at the time, and ocean legend Dr. Sylvia Earle.
We also get into the bigger picture: why âwoman diverâ is giving way to just âdiverâ, Omanâs underrated dive spots from the Daymaniyat Islands to Salalah, and DiveNav.ai, the safety-first liveaboard booking platform sheâs building now. Weâre releasing it just in time for Omani Womenâs Day on 17 October.
Join the DiveNav.ai waitlist: divenav.ai
Follow Dee on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dive.with.dee/
đ Stay Connected with - and support - The Mettleset
Credits:
- Host: Dawn Barnable
- Guest: Ehdaa (Dee) Al-Barwani
- Editor: Diya Vergis
- Produced by: The Mettleset
đ˛ The Mettleset is a multimedia platform and online community dedicated to sharing stories of underrepresented athletes and underreported sports from the Middle East and beyond. With a mission to diversify the sporting ecosystem, it is one of the first and only sports platforms in the Middle East to put women in sport first, while also featuring niche sporting communities such as action and endurance sports.
I hope you enjoy the episode!
Dawn
