Why I am a Blue Ambassador:
Q1. How does your sport connect you to the natural environment and how does that environment continually motivate and inspire you?
I dive and train in the Red Sea, one of the most stunning places for tropical fish and coral reefs. As I breathe up on the buoy, floating at the surface, my eyes dip between the seemingly barren sandstone mountains of the Sinai, to the vibrantly alive reef, buzzing with tropical fish and breath-takingly beautiful corals. As scuba divers pass beneath, their bubbles catch the light as they rise to the surface, as if someone was sprinkling silver in the sea, which magically falls upwards.
Being in the sea makes me so happy. After my first freediving course, I started diving regularly as I could see what a difference it made in my emotional wellbeing – I’m happy, balanced, strong and confident. It’s as if being in the water has unlocked a part of me that was hidden and bursting to get out. Now it’s free and I get to express it whenever I dive. I feel more like a whole person.
Q2. What has your sport and experiences through it, taught you about your natural environment?
Freediving is a totally natural expression of the human potential underwater – it is a tangible linke back to our past as sea mammals. When I’m at 90m without oxygen, I feel utterly at home – my body has adapted to this environment and revels in being there. My body and the water do the dive for me. I just relax and surrender to this magical space, and value every second that I have under the sea. My body is as comfortable and at home at depth as it is on land, possibly more so. The sea is a truly magical place, and when we understand it, its power and our relation to it, we can live in harmony as freediving so powerfully demonstrates.
Q3. A healthy environment is necessary for healthy sports. Through participating in your sport, have you encountered anything that has truly shocked you about the impact human activity is having on the natural environment?
Everyone knows how fragile and important the reefs are to the health of our oceans and consequently, our planet. It maddens me to see tourists walking over the coral, and plastic bags blowing in the breeze, which ultimately end up floating in the water. Wherever possible, I pick up the litter in the sea and put it in my buoy to dispose of properly when back on land. While I have – fortuantely – not seen it personally, I have seen photos of turtles tangled in illegal fishing nets, and fish which have strangled themselves in their struggle to escape. Corals, which have suffocated under plastic bags, which wrap themselves around the living fronds and polyps as they float in the current – these are things that CAN be reversed, but only with significant TIME and even more significante CHANGE in peoples’ behaviour and awareness.
Q4. If you could motivate people (on a local, national or international level) on one particular environmental issue, what would it be?
The local issue of plastic waste in Dahab has many faces; which makes it complicated to address, yet at the same time gives us plenty of options for taking small steps towards greater change. For example, a weekly street clean up would reduce the amount of plastic bags, which blow around and ultimately end up in the sea. If the Bedouins could be persuaded to keep their goats penned in, or if the government could provide them with an allocated grazing area, they would no longer be able to rip open the rubbish bags waiting for collection, and the contents would not be blown around and end up in the sea. If the government would reinstate the communal rubbish collection bins, we wouldn’t have to worry so much about the goats. As you can see, much of the action needs to be initiated at local government level. We are in the process of committing support to a local NGO to take over the local rubbish collection, disposal and recycling contract in the hope that this helps to bring about some of the above changes. Last week, I saw a couple on holiday providing the Bedouin kids with plastic gloves and bin bags and together they all cleaned a strip of beach in the town. It was a small gesture, but it moved me greatly to see that outsiders are doing their bit to help our town as they are as touched by its beauty as everyone of us is.
Q5. What have you changed in your day to day living behaviour and choices, including how you go-about your sport, that makes a positive difference?
On a daily basis, I’m putting my organic waste on the street to feed the goats. This not only support the Bedouins, but means that when my rubbish collected, it can be seperated more simply and pleasantly for the Equptian working who perform this crucial task. While I’m not yet using 20 litre water bottles, I have switched from 1.5L bottles to 6L bottles, which has hugely reduced by plastic waste. I’m guilty as the next person, however, in that I keep forgetting to put my cotton shopping bag in my bike to make sure I have it whenever I go grocery shopping – but I am making a point of refusing the plastic bags whenever they are offered and explaining, in my very poor Arabic, that there is too much plastic already in Dahab and it’s not good.
Q6. Why did you get involved with The BLUE Climate and Oceans Project?
I was introduced to Conrad Humphreys by a mutal contact and the idea appealed to me immediately. Since I started practising and teaching yoga about five years ago, my awareness of my own health and that of my immediate and greater surroundsing has grown immensely. As far as possible, I eat only whole foods, and I believe that this philosophy should, as far as possible, be implemented in how we live in general. As humans, we have become disconnected from nature, insulated ourseleves in cars, concrete housing, urban lifestyles and as a result, our sense of responsibility to our surroundings has diminished at an alarming rate. We ARE nature, part of nature and as such, play an important role in the sustainability of health in and around us. We all know that trees are essential due to the CO2 that they ‘eat’ and the O2 that they give back. We think we are different from the trees, the animals, the seas. We are simply part of the big picture, a small cog in the magnificently complex puzzle that is life and our universie. But no matter how small we are, the actions we do, do have an affect and together, our cumulative actions will either create health, or disease on our planet. It is our choice, every single one of us.
Q7. What one piece of advice would you offer to get people, specifically young people, thinking proactively about a BLUE future? And what actions could they take to achieve that?
It is difficult for anyone to really appreciate the positive impact they, as an individual, can have on the huge issue of environmental health. Particularly for young people, who are probably struggling for control over their daily lives as they grow and gain independence from their parents. But It takes just small actions to create great change. I would urge everyone to watch the film ‘Pay it Forward’, which perfectly demonstrates the impact one young person can have on a huge scale.
Start by creating your own environment and keeping it clean and orderly. I used to be so messy and disorganised, and only recently, since I started freediving and started to appreciate the greater picture, did I understand the value of keeping my house clean. With three dogs, three cats, a garden which is more desert than garden and a constant wind blowing sand everywhere, it could be a full-time job, but setting aside a few hours every Saturday morning to clean my house top to bottom has become a weekly gift that I give to myself – afterwards I feel so light and feel that I can give my full attention to the rest of the week and all the things I have to do. I even made a point of cleaning my house on my birthday because it was how I wanted to spend my day! My mother wouldn’t believe it if she read this, but it’s true. Start with your immediate surroundings and the rest will follow. Eat healthily and notice the change in how you feel and then treat your environment with that same respect. After all, it’s just an extended part of you!
