‘The ocean has no boundaries’: Beauty and life in a war zone
Iran closed the waterway to foreign shipping, attacking merchant vessels and cutting off around 20 per cent of the world’s seaborne oil trade. Some 20,000 seafarers were stranded in the Persian Gulf. The UN Secretary-General called for an immediate ceasefire.Beneath all of it, the fish kept swimming.Back in the waterThree Chinese divers based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – diving instructor Rui Li, freediver Shanshan Du and technical diver Jie Zhang – had been locked out of the water for weeks by the coastal closure. When a ceasefire allowed limited access in mid-April, they went straight back in.World Oceans Day, marked each year on 8 June, carries the theme this year of Reimagining the Relationship Between Humans and the Ocean. For these three, that reimagining is anything but abstract.“We were actually a little worried before setting off,” says Du, who dived the narrowest stretch between the UAE and Oman on 18 April, just days after the UN welcomed Iran’s announcement that the strait would be open to commercial vessels during the ceasefire. “But after more than two months, we all felt it was fantastic to be able to dive again. We encountered a large group of dolphins. There was none of the war-torn atmosphere I had imagined – only peace and beauty before my eyes.”Zhang, who dived the area as recently as last week, describes coral diversity she has rarely encountered elsewhere – soft and hard corals varying with the topography, and sea turtles gathered in such numbers they evoked a nature reserve.
