{"id":480296,"date":"2026-06-07T04:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T04:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/480296\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T04:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T04:54:09","slug":"the-ocean-has-no-boundaries-beauty-and-life-in-a-war-zone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/480296\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The ocean has no boundaries\u2019: Beauty and life in a war zone"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iran\u00a0closed the waterway<\/a> to foreign shipping, attacking merchant vessels and\u00a0cutting off<\/a> around 20 per cent of the world\u2019s seaborne oil trade. Some 20,000 seafarers were stranded in the Persian Gulf. The UN Secretary-General called for an immediate ceasefire.<\/p>\n

Beneath all of it, the fish kept swimming.<\/p>\n

Back in the water<\/p>\n

Three Chinese divers based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) \u2013 diving instructor Rui Li, freediver Shanshan Du and technical diver Jie Zhang \u2013 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.<\/p>\n

World Oceans Day<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were actually a little worried before setting off,\u201d says Du, who dived the narrowest stretch between the UAE and Oman on 18 April, just days after the UN welcomed Iran\u2019s announcement that the strait would be open to commercial vessels during the ceasefire.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBut 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 \u2013 only peace and beauty before my eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zhang, who dived the area as recently as last week, describes coral diversity she has rarely encountered elsewhere \u2013 soft and hard corals varying with the topography, and sea turtles gathered in such numbers they evoked a nature reserve.<\/p>\n

Courtesy of Jie Zhang.
\n Jie Zhang is back from the depths, feeling the warmth of the sun. <\/p>\n

Troubling signs<\/p>\n

She also noticed something more troubling. \u201cI saw more white debris on the seabed than before,\u201d she says, uncertain of its origin. And when she and her companions followed dolphins near the eastern side of the strait, the water around the animals was streaked with green algae, oil fumes and floating rubbish.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI recalled that when I used to chase dolphins, the water was blue. Seeing this scene with my own eyes is still very heartbreaking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Li is careful to hold both realities at once. The strait is not the world\u2019s most biodiverse marine zone, he notes, but its complex topography sustains coral reefs of unusual variety \u2013 formations \u201cas white as silver needles\u201d alongside colonies \u201cas purple as pine forests\u201d \u2013 as well as seahorses, whale sharks and species rarely seen elsewhere.<\/p>\n

He describes witnessing a boat captain who, unable to dive and with no other means of communication, could reliably find a pod of dolphins that seemed to recognise him. \u201cWe would greet each other and then go our separate ways,\u201d Li says. \u201cThis place is truly magical.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a9Jie Zhang
\n Overlooking the Strait of Hormuz from the Musandam Peninsula, Oman.<\/p>\n

Potential catastrophe<\/p>\n

Yet he is also acutely aware of what armed conflict can do to such a place. An attack on oil storage facilities, he points out, could be catastrophic for marine life. \u201cMany 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zhang frames the underwater world\u2019s vulnerability in blunt terms. \u201cNo one can speak for the underwater ecosystem\u00a0 – fish can\u2019t speak, and neither can large animals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe dump all the disputes, wars and pollution on land onto the ocean, ignoring the fact that the ocean has no good self-protection capabilities and can only bear all the conflicts and damage caused by human activities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Diving has quietly dissolved certain certainties for all three. \u201cUnderwater, the ocean has no borders,\u201d says Zhang. \u201cOcean currents and schools of fish move freely. When whale sharks cruise, they follow fixed routes through different countries \u2013 they are free. Humanity should share this blue world instead of tearing it apart with disputes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a9Jie Zhang
\n Rui Li makes a heart gesture to his dive buddy on the water\u2019s surface, which also stands for “OK” in diving hand signal terms.<\/p>\n

Mother ocean<\/p>\n

Li reaches for a different metaphor \u2013 warmer, and perhaps more honest about the limits of human agency. The relationship between people and the sea, he suggests, is something like that between a child and a parent: the ocean sustains us, nurtures us, occasionally punishes us.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have grown old enough to want to protect it, he says, yet what we can actually do remains small. \u201cOur parents are still quietly waiting for us, helping us, and continuing to nurture us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Du, diving in a country where people of dozens of nationalities converge, has found that underwater, borders feel beside the point. Communication happens through gesture alone. \u201cBecause of this hobby, and because of the ocean, it has created a wonderful environment for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The conflicts raging above the surface have not ended. Talks between Washington and Tehran remain fragile, conditions volatile. But 71 per cent of the Earth is ocean \u2013 and, as Li says to anyone who has yet to see it: come and touch the refreshing water whenever you can.<\/p>\n

\u00a9Jie Zhang
\n Madivaru Corner in the Maldives is a world-class dive site. Grey reef sharks and white-tip reef sharks are its permanent residents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iran\u00a0closed the waterway to foreign shipping, attacking merchant vessels and\u00a0cutting off around 20 per cent of the world\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480297,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[242,85,46,141],"class_list":["post-480296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}