Abu Dhabi’s pearl industry may have taken a back seat to oil, but the traditions surrounding it live on. Abu Dhabi Week finds out first-hand the perils of diving for pearls.

“It was a scary trade, no doubt about it, but it was our job,” says former pearl diver, Al Mohammed Al Mansouri.

“It was the only job for us to do.”

Taking refuge from the winter wind blowing across Mina Port, as we walk through the door of the Abu Dhabi Fishermen’s Cooperative Society we’re just in time to hear Al Mansouri launch into a spellbinding tale of his old life.

“Sometimes we would dive as far as 20 taba down into the ocean,” he gestures with his hands. “Taba is the measurement we would use for our descent – the wingspan of our arms.”

Despite the language barrier, we get by with the use of exaggerated sign language – much to the amusement of his friends and colleagues.

“Some men could spend up to twenty minutes down on the ocean bed,” he says, pinching his nose with his fingers and puffing out his cheeks to show how he would hold his breath underwater. “It was dangerous and many men lost their lives.

“Diving was manual then,” he adds, his hearing obviously fading with age as we speak up over the giggles from his friends.

“Our fathers taught us. We had no tanks or breathing apparatus. It’s a forgotten culture now, but we had nothing more than a nose peg and a whole lot of hope in us, trying to find those pearls,” he says, as he again shows us with his arms how he would swim.

Al Mansouri isn’t the only one at the Society that remembers the very real dangers of diving for pearls. A spritely, 75-year-old Saeed Rashid Alkeem, lights up as – again through broken English – he explains the risks involved.

“I was lucky but some of my colleagues were not so fortunate; there were sharks, large fish, problems with lungs and devils in the sea that kept some men from their families upon our return,” he says, pausing to reflect.
Alkeem, along with up to 100 other men aboard the ship, would go down into the water on a rotary shift for up to 18 hours at a time.

“I wasn’t as good as some men at holding my breath with the fatam [nose peg] – I could maybe last for five minutes.”

He started his career at 20 years old in 1948, joining the “big dives” each summer to go in search of pearls.
“My father taught me to dive, the same way his father had taught him,” he remembers. “I was proud to join the tradition. It was dangerous, but it’s what most people did for a living in Abu Dhabi.”

Diving with just a nose clip, a khabat – a sharp tool placed in between fingers to prize the oyster shell from the seabed – and a hasat gawas – a stone weight attached to the diver to help him sink – divers took great risk making each dive. Understandably, illness and death were common.

“Divers suffered from lung disease, fungal infections of the skin, scurvy, rheumatism and arthritis. Many also suffered from slow degeneration of the brain due to being starved of oxygen for long periods of time,” says Khaled Al Sayegh, chairman of the Pearl Revival Committee, and a fifth generation businessman of the pearl trade.

With no doctor on board a dive boat, the crew dealt first-hand with the realities of this harsh trade. Ailments were commonly treated with pounded myrtle, which had anti-inflammatory benefits, and al-jeft – the extract from acorns – was commonly used to cure skin conditions. The seriously ill were thrown overboard with a stone tied to a leg, while the dead were also thrown overboard, wrapped in a blanket. Some ships would raise a flag as a sign of losing a crew member.

Supplies on board were scarce so one popular port of call was Dalma Island – called so because ships would anchor to collect a bucket of water (Dal Maa) from the island’s shores. Some would argue that this tiny island was once the most important island in the Emirate for the pearl trading industry.

Not taking the fishermen’s word for it, we decided to take a trip out there ourselves. As we fly towards the key shaped island, we marvel at the rather isolated looking land as a flock of flamingos scatter. We circle the whole island – a mix of empty beaches, rocky terrain and well-kept orchards; it seems surprising that this now quiet, windswept island was once a hive of activity.

“Dalma island was an important pearl-trading centre and its shoreline was lined with markets,” explains Al Sayegh.

“Markets were regularly established for pearl sellers and buyers who came from countries around the world at the end of each pearling season. Merchants would settle their debts during these seasonal markets on the island.”

It is thought that as many as one hundred diving ships sailed from Dalma each season with 40 to 150 divers aboard each one. In fact, at the height of Dalma’s pearl trade, the island’s annual revenue from the pearl trade was said to be around $5,000.

“I remember setting sail from Dalma,” recalls Ali Mohammed. “The great dives would start in May as soon as the waters began to warm up, and we would continue through to September. They were long months,” he adds.

“We would be out on the water for four months and ten days,” echoes Alkeem with a nod. “We would all miss our families and I would always be anxious to get back. In Islamic law if you’re a wife and your husband dies you’re not allowed to remarry for four months and ten days, so I was always keen to greet my wife!” he laughs.

Past and present

Despite all the risks involved, many men still continued to earn a living from pearl diving until the late 1950s.
“The trade accounted for 95 percent of the entire national income of the Emirate until the 1950s,” explains Khaled Al Sayegh.

 

Today, Dalma island, home to approximately 5,000 people, is one of the last standing testaments to the Emirate’s pearling past. Built in 1931, the Al-Muraykhi House on Dalma, once the home of pearl merchant Muhammad Bin Jasim Al-Maraykhi, now houses Dalma Museum, a small and charming mini monument to the island’s rich past that’s well worth a visit. Although the pearl diving section is small, the museum houses numerous items of pottery and a collection of coins from around the world – a reminder of the once vibrant trade that took place on the now quiet island.

The museum is open from Saturday to Thursday from 8am to 4pm and is free of charge. Dalma is reachable by ferry or plane. For more details, register at www.dalmaisland.com

The Pearl Revival Committee
Launched in 2004, the Pearl Revival Committee is actively working to keep the history and importance of pearling in the capital alive with regular symposiums, lectures and conferences.
Enjoy the Committee’s efforts in engaging the public interest with a special pearl display currently on show at Emirates Palace, including a rare collection of 17th century pearl jewellery and the largest Abalone pearl in the world – according to the Guinness Book of World Records – on display. For more information: 02 690 9000.

 

Charlie Kennedy