For Dina Albitar, the next few minutes were transformational. The professional freediver’s thoughts all floated away as she drew one final inhalation and descended into the warm waters of the blue hole in Egypt.
As she followed the rope and sank further into relaxation, the athlete opened her eyes to see a spectacular underwater arch illuminated by light. Her mind was still, and the moment – a profound confrontation with the hidden beauty of the deep ocean – was hers alone.
“I was just smiling because it was such a nice dive,” the Palestinian-Jordanian freediver tells The National, recalling an experience that was at once unforgettable and familiar, a dive taken for fun and not as part of a competition. “Once you're in the water, nothing matters. It's for you … it's such a grounding experience and it is the only thing that helps me shut down.”
Freediving, a sport in which people hold their breath while diving underwater, has grown in popularity over the past few years. There is no set depth that defines a freedive, but recreational participants usually learn to dive to about 30 metres.
Jordan’s deepest freediver
In competitive freediving, athletes go even deeper. The divers who The National speaks to often reach depths of between 45 and more than 70 metres, with and without fins.
Spectacular images of freedivers exploring the ocean have multiplied on social media, helping to increase awareness. Meanwhile, record-breaking attempts, as well as the Netflix documentary The Deepest Breath, have helped pull this once niche sport further into the mainstream. Freediving was previously considered an extreme activity, but the narrative is changing. For many, it has become a chance to calm the mind through deep introspection and stillness, while for others it’s a way to marvel at reefs and corals.
Albitar, 27, is Jordan’s deepest freediver – and she’s also among a growing cohort of Arab women who are taking on this thrilling sport. From Egypt to Bahrain, female athletes in the Middle East and North Africa are not only making a mark as athletes, but also breaking barriers and helping to introduce the sport to countless other women.
“It’s getting competitive,” Albitar notes. “I love it because it shows we’re capable. You rarely hear about Middle Eastern women in sports like this, and now we’re out here breaking records.”
For Albitar, the sport is a powerful conduit for calming her mind, testing her limits and challenging traditional gender stereotypes in the region. In the water, she is unapologetically herself. “Freediving helps me disconnect from all the societal norms, all the pressure, everything about who you have to be, what you should do,” she says.
The movement is also gathering pace. Data from the International Association for the Development of Apnea (AIDA), a leading regulatory body in the sport, shows that the number of women participating in freediving across the Arab world is steadily growing. So far in 2025, 1,458 women across Egypt, Iran, the UAE, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Jordan have been awarded AIDA certifications, which freedivers commonly acquire when they start the sport, marking a 61 per cent increase in just two years.
But the journey hasn’t been easy. Egyptian athlete Ranalina Alim, 34, discovered freediving by chance in 2020, a time when things were still different.
“I noticed very clearly from the beginning that this was a sport for foreigners,” says Alim, who started her freediving journey behind the reception desk of Dahab Freedivers school in Egypt. She eventually became an instructor at the school, as well as a competitive athlete. However, it was attending competitions as a spectator when Alim noticed a distinct absence of Arab women. Visa challenges and costly trips to overseas competitions may have added to the difficulties these divers faced at this time.
“When I went to the Kas Freediving World Championship in 2021, I thought: ‘How come all these people come to train here and we're not involved?’” Alim says, vowing to spread awareness of the beauty of freediving.
And she is certainly making her mark. In October, Alim broke two national records at the 2025 Freediving World Cup in Sharm El-Sheikh, where she reached 71 metres with constant weight with a monofin and 67 metres with a constant weight and bi-fins. The depths have earned her the unofficial title of the deepest Arab woman.
Egypt now leads the way in the region, with women accounting for 49 per cent of all freediving certifications awarded this year. Many credit trainer Khaled Elgammal, Egypt’s most accomplished freediver, with inspiring women to embark on their own professional freediving journeys.
By breaking records and taking her dives to deeper depths, Alim also helped inspire other women. “I felt like I opened the door for something big, and I'm really proud of that,” she adds.
Despite growing interest, cultural expectations have weighed on some of the region’s most accomplished female athletes. Zainab Alwazzan, Kuwait’s deepest female freediver, did not tell her parents when she first attempted to set a national record. Even though freedivers wear full-cover wetsuits, Alwazzan was also confronted with criticism from her community: “We get a lot of comments about being 'semi-naked'.
“Especially in GCC countries, you would find a lot of restrictions when it comes to clothing,” she says. “You would find a lot of people criticising what you're doing, saying: ‘You're a woman, you should be more conservative.’”
But slowly, criticism has begun to give way to acceptance. “People are starting to understand freediving is a sport. Not just a hobby, a real sport,” Alwazzan says.
The calling has also seen some walk away from more traditional paths in pursuit of healthier and happier lifestyles. “This life, in our Arab culture, is not a life path. It is not an option,” Shereen Ramadan jokes, explaining that she left a marriage and corporate work in Dubai to pursue freediving and scuba diving and hasn’t looked back.
This month, Ramadan, 34, one of Egypt’s deepest freedivers, claimed the country’s no fins World Underwater Federation record, reaching 51 metres at the Egyptian Freediving Open Championship, which finished on November 9. She tells The National that most of her students are women.
Rather than rejecting cultural pressures, freedivers appear to be redefining the narrative. Alwazzan, who has five children with her husband, Croatian freediver Boris Spajic, says she's found her own rhythm between motherhood and training. Although she recently had to pause freediving to welcome a baby, she’s already preparing to return to the water and says she is passing on her passion for the water to her children. “It's in their DNA,” Alwazzan says.
The sport's focus on nervous system regulation and breathwork is also adding to its appeal. “People can see how passionate we are and how it's affected our lives in a healthy way,” Ramadan says, “Now our generation is breaking those cultural norms and barriers. We’re gaining courage to make this our life.”
As more women take to the water, a sisterhood is emerging, one where these freedivers help each other grow while enjoying a healthy dose of competitiveness when it comes to the records. “The women are on fire. It feels like there’s a group of women working together to go deeper,” Ramadan adds.
This momentum is being felt across the region. In the Red Sea waters of Saudi Arabia, there is another small but mighty group of inspiring women freedivers leading the way.
“I wanted a female to teach me, and there were not a lot in Saudi Arabia,” Salma Ahmed Shaker, 25, says about starting freediving six years ago. She’s now the kingdom’s deepest female freediver, reaching 70 metres at a constant weight with bi-fins, and credits her coach Mariam Shalan for helping her unlock the magic of freediving, while also signing up for her first competition.
The relatability of learning freediving with another Arab woman made all the difference, and was the start of a wonderful friendship. “Having someone my age, with the same mentality, the same struggles means I really related to her,” Shaker says. “It's a different energy in the water, in my opinion. You know, female energy.”
Fast-forward half a decade, and Shaker can’t imagine life without the ocean, crediting the underwater Red Sea playground as part of her inspiration for pursuing freediving. “We have the best sea in the world, so might as well try to discover it,” she adds.
As women in the region continue to push their limits and explore new depths of the water on their doorsteps, authorities are also starting to take notice of this niche sport and the pioneering women at its forefront. While there is still work to be done, names continue to appear in competitions, schools are opening and records are being set. This pace of growth, Ramadan says, is “amazing to witness”.
Shaker agrees: “I think in 10 years we're going see numbers we never expected.”
Alongside the sport’s unstoppable trajectory, its athletes have a clear message: freediving is open to all.
“It’s not about holding your breath for the longest time or going as deep as you can,” Ramadan says. “Freediving as a sport, as a hobby, is super-good for our lifestyle and health on all levels. Do yourself a favour and go for it.”
