Iran closed the waterway to foreign shipping, attacked merchant ships and cut off about 20 percent of global maritime oil trade. Some 20,000 sailors were stranded in the Persian Gulf. The UN Secretary General called for an immediate ceasefire.
Underneath all that, the fish kept swimming.
Back in the water
Three Chinese divers based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), diving instructor Rui Li, freediver Shanshan Du and technical diver Jie Zhang, had been excluded from the water for weeks due to the coastal closure. When a ceasefire allowed limited access in mid-April, they headed straight back.
World Oceans Day, celebrated every year on June 8, has as its theme this year: Reimagining the relationship between humans and the ocean. For these three, that reinvention is anything but abstract.
“We were actually a little worried before we left,” says Du, who dived in the narrowest stretch between the United Arab Emirates and Oman on April 18, just days after the UN welcomed Iran’s announcement that the strait would be open to commercial ships during the ceasefire.
“But after more than two months, we all felt it was great to be able to dive again. We encountered a large pod of dolphins. There was none of the war-torn atmosphere I had imagined, just peace and beauty before my eyes.”
Zhang, who dived in the area last week, describes the diversity of corals he has rarely encountered elsewhere: soft and hard corals that vary depending on the topography, and sea turtles gathered in such numbers that they evoke a nature reserve.
Jie Zhang has returned from the depths and feels the warmth of the sun.
Worrying signs
He also noticed something more worrying. “I saw more white debris at the bottom of the sea than before,” he says, without knowing its origin. And when she and her companions followed the dolphins near the eastern side of the strait, the water around the animals was speckled with green algae, oil vapors and floating trash.
“I remembered that when I was hunting dolphins, the water was blue. Seeing this scene with my own eyes is still very heartbreaking.”
Li is careful to maintain both realities at once. The strait is not the most biodiverse marine area in the world, he notes, but its complex topography supports coral reefs of an unusual variety – formations “as white as silver needles” along with colonies “as purple as pine forests” – as well as seahorses, whale sharks and species rarely seen elsewhere.
He describes witnessing a boat captain who, unable to dive and with no other means of communication, was able to reliably find a pod of dolphins that seemed to recognize him. “We would greet each other and then go our separate ways,” Li says. “This place is truly magical.”
Overlooking the Strait of Hormuz from the Musandam Peninsula, Oman.
Possible catastrophe
However, he is also very aware of what an armed conflict can affect a place like this. An attack on oil storage facilities, he notes, could be catastrophic for marine life. “Many marine organisms are small and vulnerable. A single attack could be enough to wipe out some amazing species that have never been seen by humans.”
Zhang presents the vulnerability of the underwater world in forceful terms. “No one can speak on behalf of the underwater ecosystem: fish cannot speak, nor can large animals.
“We throw all disputes, wars and land pollution into the ocean, ignoring the fact that the ocean does not have good self-protection capabilities and can only withstand all conflicts and damage caused by human activities.”
Diving has quietly dissolved certain certainties for all three of us. “Underwater, the ocean has no boundaries,” says Zhang. “Ocean currents and schools of fish move freely. When whale sharks sail, they follow fixed routes through different countries: they are free. Humanity should share this blue world instead of destroying it with disputes.”
Rui Li makes a heart gesture to his diving partner on the surface of the water, which also means “OK” in terms of diving hand signals.
mother ocean
Li turns to a different metaphor: warmer and perhaps more honest about the limits of human action. The relationship between people and the sea, he suggests, is something like that between a child and its parents: the ocean sustains us, nourishes us, and sometimes punishes us.
“We have grown enough to want to protect him, he says, but what we can really do is still little. Our parents still wait for us calmly, help us and continue to take care of us.”
Du, who dives in a country where people of dozens of nationalities converge, has discovered that underwater borders seem out of place. Communication occurs only through gesture. “Thanks to this hobby and the ocean, a wonderful environment has been created for us.”
The conflicts raging on the surface have not ended. Talks between Washington and Tehran remain fragile and conditions volatile. But 71 percent of the Earth is ocean, and as Li tells anyone who hasn’t seen it yet: Come and touch the refreshing water whenever you can.
Madivaru Corner in the Maldives is a world class dive site. Gray reef sharks and whitetip sharks are its permanent residents.