How The Gate Freediving came to be — and what we are trying to build.
The Gate Freediving started because two friends spent too many years telling each other they should just do it.
Emilio and Liam grew up in the Netherlands and met through scuba diving. For years they dived together — first in Dutch waters, then further afield, eventually ending up in Dahab. Dahab has a way of doing that. You come for a week and start making plans to come back for longer.
Both of them found freediving here. Not as a replacement for scuba, but as something completely different — quieter, more internal, more honest in what it asks of you. The skills, the calm, the way it changes how you move in the water. They were hooked.
What they wanted to build was somewhere that felt like a home base for the freediving community — a place where anyone could show up, feel welcome, and leave knowing more than when they arrived. About diving, about the water, about Dahab itself.
Getting it right mattered. Not just the teaching, but the way the center operates — the equipment, the facilities, the environmental commitments. Freediving asks you to be present and deliberate underwater. It felt right that the center should work the same way above it.
The third person in the story is Bassem — a friend who has lived in Dahab for years and knows the place better than anyone. Bassem owns The Gate hotel, a clean, well-run property in Mashraba with the best pool in town. When the three of them started talking about what a freediving center at The Gate could look like, it felt like an obvious fit. Three friends, one place, a shared love of the water.
The Gate Freediving opened in 2025. The team speaks Dutch, English, Spanish and Arabic. The pool is 25 metres and used daily. The reef is a short drive away.
The goal has not changed since that first conversation: give every diver the kind of attention and conditions that actually make them better in the water — and share everything we know about the place while we are at it.