I travelled to the Maldives to dive for the first time – this is what I learned

Diving for the first time: This was the experience of a VOGUE author.

During the stopover in Doha, it hits me. My thoughts revolve around “The Big Blue”, a film that I saw for the first time in my youth and that has kept coming back to me ever since. For anyone who doesn’t know this French classic by Luc Besson: The two childhood friends Jacques and Enzo are among the best freedivers in the world – but both end up losing their lives in this magical and fascinating underwater world. Even though the story is dramatic, what stuck with me as a teenager was the indescribable magic of the sea world – which is now coming back to haunt me.

Although the film selection on the connecting flight to Malé, the capital of the Maldives, was disappointing and did not include the film in question, the topic of diving was still omnipresent – mixed with anticipation and also a little fear. Because the very next day I will be diving into this previously unknown world for the first time – in the truest sense of the word.

Women’s Diving Day: Why more and more women are enthusiastic about diving

The reason for this trip is not only my long-held wish to try diving with oxygen tanks, but also a very special one: Women’s Dive Day is coming up. The diving day especially for women, which begins every year on July 20th, is actually quite right. Because diving as a sport has always seemed to be male-dominated and dominated by men (this is also shown in the above-mentioned film, in which women only play a supporting role – even if it is about a different type of diving).

In recent years, however, more and more organizations have been working to make it easier for women to get into the sport and to increase the visibility of existing female divers. One of the largest diving organizations in the world, PADI, is also passionate about the issue, which is why they launched Women’s Dive Day over ten years ago.

The Sentido OBLU Helengeli in the Maldives has also been part of this initiative for years. Together with representatives of the government and the diving organization PADI, this year not only the 10th anniversary of Women’s Dive Day was celebrated, but also the progress that has been made over the past decade. Most importantly, the proportion of women diving has increased from 36 to 40 percent. The foundation for this was laid in the Maldives 40 years ago: Giuseppe D’Amato, the region’s first diving instructor and founder of the TGI Maldives diving school, certified the first highest-level female diving instructor. Since then, his mission has been to correct the imbalance between men and women in diving and to increase the number of female PADI members.