At Pink Jinn, we love to celebrate women each and every day, but we’ve lined up something extra special this month! We’ve joined up with the amazing team at Under the Abaya, a non-profit and creative platform based in Saudi Arabia, to raise funds for women’s initiatives across the Kingdom. Together with Twisted Comics, we’re creating a comic book to shout about the incredible achievements of three trailblazing Saudi women who dreamed big and are forging new paths for their sisters all across the world, and reaching dizzying new heights (and depths)!
One of the stars of the series is Nada Alrasheed, an elite competitive freediver who shatters records, stereotypes, and her own limits every time she gets into the water. Only six years into her freediving career, Nada has broken no fewer than seven Saudi records across three different disciplines and set a new depth record for Arab women, and she shows no signs of slowing down.
Captivated by the magic of the sea from her childhood, Nada spent hours diving to explore the mysteries of the underwater world long before she had ever heard of freediving. Her father fed her fascination, taking her on snorkelling trips and hunting out documentaries about marine life to watch together. When she first discovered freediving in 2018, she only meant to take a short course to feel closer to the incredible marine life in the waters of the Gulf. Before long, the call to dive deeper became overwhelming, and her passion for freediving was born.
Freediving is one of the most punishing, yet magical disciplines on earth, where mastery of the human body allows the most fearless among us to experience one of the last true frontiers on the planet; the depths of the ocean.
Using only their supreme breath control, freedivers eschew breathing apparatus to dive unassisted to depths most of us could only imagine. Even modern scuba divers, laden with equipment and gas cylinders, can’t descend below forty metres without special training and a specialised gas mix designed for the depths. Meanwhile freedivers frequently make it to depths of thirty, forty and fifty metres with nothing but one lungful of air!
For reference, forty metres is the height of a thirteen storey building, and conditions at those depths are cold and dark, with extreme water pressure compressing any air spaces in the body. Despite the dangers, the most extreme freediving records hit depths of well over a hundred metres. Unencumbered by equipment and gas tanks, freediving is an experience unlike any other on earth, rewarding those who can master their breath – and their fear – with the experience of complete unity with the underwater world.
Far from discouraging Nada, it seems that it was exactly these challenges which drew her even deeper into freediving. The allure of the silent depths, the sense of control she’d feel on a dive, and the profound connection with her body proved addictive, and she quickly progressed further and further through her training. Her endless determination soon emerged as her strongest advantage, carrying her through setbacks and gruelling training sessions.
“Never let fear of failure stop you from trying.”
As she dove deeper and deeper, she had to learn equalisation, the skill of managing the pressure in the sinuses, ears, lungs, and mask as the water pressure around a diver increases. The extreme risk and skill that freediving demands means that a diver’s greatest enemy can be their own mind. Fear or panic can disrupt the breath control so crucial to the sport, so mastering negative emotions, overcoming the pressures and scrutiny of competitions, and building a bullet-proof positive mindset are all just as key to freediving as the physical skills required. Before long, the irresistible call of the deep pulled her through all these challenges, Nada entered the world of competitive freediving, and the rest is history!
Far from a new discipline to reach the Middle East, freediving heritage goes back hundreds upon hundreds of years in the Gulf, thanks to the region’s history as one of the world’s richest sources of natural pearls. For generations, pearl divers across the coastal regions of the Gulf searched the seabed for prized pearl oysters with no equipment and no breathing apparatus. One sociologist even estimates that prior to the Second World War, up to eighty percent of the workforce in the UAE were connected with pearl diving!
Meanwhile in Saudi Arabia, Nada’s homeland, the waters of the Arabian Gulf off the coasts of the Eastern Province and the Farasan Islands in the Red Sea were particularly famed for their pearls, and divers there would frequently reach depths of thirty metres on one breath in their quest for the precious gems. While modern farmed and synthetic pearls have almost completely eradicated traditional pearl diving, today’s fearless Middle Eastern freedivers follow generations of expertise each time they descend into the depths.
Despite this rich tradition of freediving in Saudi Arabia, the sport in its modern form is still in its infancy in the Kingdom, and infrastructure for the country’s elite athletes is still developing. Much of Nada’s training has to be done without the advanced supports and safety mechanisms you’d see at freediving competitions, and one of the biggest hurdles she faced was designing her own training programme and figuring out how to train for deeper dives safely without a competition-style freediving platform.
While the dangers of the sport are all too clear, so are the incredible highs. Nada’s triumphant dives in the turquoise waters of Kalamata, Greece at the World Freediving Depth Championships last year brought a new personal best and no fewer than four records.
“It was a moment of pride and proof that hard work and belief in myself could shatter limits.”
Some of the rewards of freediving come with less fanfare, but no less significance. Nada speaks with wonder in her eyes of diving with sharks, of the bliss she finds in the connection she has built with her body, and of the silence far below the waves. The rewards continue even after she’s left the water; the honour she feels to be able to demonstrate the strength and potential of Saudi women on the world stage, and the belief in herself and in the power of determination she has built through countless dives.
Since her success in Greece late last year, Nada has been turning her attention right back to her deep love of the oceans and the urgent threats to them that are becoming all too clear on her dives. Last summer, water temperatures spiked dramatically, with the mercury hitting 4 or even 5 degrees hotter than the year before, and for many of Nada’s dives she was surrounded by dead fish and eels, victims of the unprecedented heat. The dead fish draw in sharks to shallower waters, and freedivers like Nada now often have to contend with silky sharks circling them on their dives. With an ever-growing platform, and as she scoops more and more depth records, Nada hopes that she can use her voice to protect and preserve the marine life that first inspired her love of the sea.
As a female Saudi athlete, finding the balance between tradition and progress can be a challenging line to walk at times, and another of Nada’s successes has been to meld her heritage with her ambition and her drive for change. Drawing on her cultural background and identity for strength, and holding her values close, she’s forging a new path for herself which encompasses all aspects of her identity as well as her passion for the depths.
“By staying grounded in my values while pursuing progress, I aim to show that it’s possible to honor traditions and break barriers simultaneously. My journey is about blending heritage with ambition, inspiring change in a way that respects our roots.”
Although most of us may never venture so far beneath the waves, the lessons of freediving are just as invaluable for life on land; the all-conquering power of cultivating the right mindset, the urgent necessity of protecting our environment, and the astonishing freedom that can come from mastering the fear of failure.
Nada’s incredible journey under the waves is now available in comic book form as part of our collaboration with Under the Abaya and Twisted Comics, and you can pre-order your very own copy here! The project is raising funds for women’s initiatives across Saudi Arabia, so get your order in soon to support this wonderful cause!
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