Favourite marine animal: Turtles. The gentle, friendly creatures always captivate me. I have a penchant for finding sleepy turtles.

Favourite Dive ever: Diving on the "Mariam Express" with my brother on his birthday. We got to enjoy the beautiful wreck and really strengthen our bond of both brotherhood and friendship while enjoying the activity we love best.

What’s your first memory of the ocean? When I was 3 or 4, my family went on a weekend getaway to the East Coast of the U.A.E. to the town of Khorfakkan to enjoy the beauty of the Indian Ocean. I learned to swim that weekend and no one could get me out of the water. Funny enough, I got stung by a Jellyfish and a Sea Urchin on that weekend, but I still insisted on swimming around.

What does diving mean to you? Diving has opened many worlds to me, not only the world of the diving community where I found many close friends I consider to be family, but the new family I found has also extended to the underwater world. As beautiful as it is sensitive, the underwater world held many wonders in it for me, and after many years in diving, it still holds more and more wonders.

How did you first get involved with Project AWARE? My first involvement with Project AWARE started when Project AWARE staff came to Dubai to give a talk. I was captivated by their passion, and the information they were presenting instilled in me an unwavering need to take action. Immediately after that event, I became a 100% AWARE Instructor, an initiative that was newly launched where I committed to make a donation to Project AWARE for every student that I teach. Since that day, I have been involved in almost every initiative that Project AWARE ever rolled out.

Why did you start submitting your Dive Against Debris data and can you tell us more about your adopted dive site? After talking with the staff in Project AWARE as we were organizing a cleanup, I understood the importance of submitting data, and I started making sure I submit data not only on cleanup dives but on every dive I am part of. In the modern world, taking action by collecting debris is great, but that is only a fraction of the great work that Project AWARE engages in, as they also address policy makers, and in that part of their work, data is the most important tool they have.

Once the Adopt A Dive Site initiative was rolled out, my brother and I adopted not only one, but three dive sites that we regularly dive in, distributed over a great distance over the coast, in order to be able to submit data that presents the situation of our waters. Our adopted dive sites are Dibba Rock, the only marine protected area in the United Arab Emirates, this is our favorite dive site in the world, and we have seen many great things on it, from Whale Sharks to Dolphins, to Rays, it's a dive site that never disappoints us. Our other adopted dive site is Inchcape 1, the deepest recreational level shipwreck in the United Arab Emirates, and a site frequented by divers. Finally, the last dive site we adopted was Shark Island, situated near the port, this dive site used to be a very rich reef system where sharks were a common site, but due to the debris coming to it from the port, as well as tourists, it has dwindled down into a site where little to no fish or coral survived, but it still has a beauty to it that is partially due to it once upon a time being one of the richest reefs we had. The dive sites represent the future, with a protected reef, as well as the past, with a reef that was severely damaged, as well as representing nature with natural reef systems, and mankind with the artificial reef system of the wreck.