As we moved through the water, I thought about how few female dive instructors I"ve actually met around the world. According to PADI, the activity is still very much dominated by men: globally, of the 128,000 instructors globally, just 20% of instructors (at all levels) are currently female. In Europe, the Middle East and Africa the number sinks – to around 16% – and in predominately Muslim countries, that figure plummets further, with less than 10% in the countries of Bahrain, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the UAE.