Born in Oman's waters.
Built for the world.
Muscat, Oman · Est. 2019
Our Story
Muscat, Oman · Est. 2019
Where It Began
In late 2019, Ehdaa Al-Barwani opened Aura Divers in Muscat, Oman. She was the country's first female PADI professional diving instructor, and she had a simple mission: make diving accessible to everyone, especially women who had never been told this world was for them.
Just months after opening, the pandemic hit. But instead of shutting down, women across Oman signed up for online theory courses and showed up for in-water lessons the moment restrictions eased. They brought their families. They brought their friends. What started as a one-woman operation with a single boat captain became a proper dive center with a growing team and a loyal community.
Aura Divers ran dive trips across Oman's coastline, from the Daymaniyat Islands to the Hallaniyat archipelago. Women-only courses became a signature. The community grew to over 10,000 divers. International media took notice. And through all of it, Ehdaa kept noticing the same problem: divers booking their first liveaboard trip had no reliable way to know what they were actually getting into.
Founder & CEO
Oman's first female PADI professional diving instructor. 500+ logged dives. Founder of Aura Divers and DiveNav.ai. Now based in Abu Dhabi, building the trust layer the dive travel industry has been missing.
What Came Next
After years of running dive operations, one pattern became impossible to ignore. First-time liveaboard divers were booking trips blind. Hidden fees surfaced after payment. Safety standards varied wildly between operators with no way to compare. Skill mismatches led to uncomfortable, sometimes dangerous, situations on board. And no platform existed to solve any of it.
That firsthand frustration became the foundation for DiveNav.ai, a trust-verification platform for liveaboard dive trips. DiveNav vets operators, verifies safety credentials, shows real pricing with no hidden costs, and matches divers to trips based on their actual experience level and diving style.
In 2025, Aura Divers moved from Muscat to Abu Dhabi's Masdar City. The community lives on, but the focus shifted to building the platform that the diving industry has been missing. The same instinct that drove Aura Divers, making diving safer, more transparent, and more welcoming, now drives DiveNav on a global scale.
DiveNav vets liveaboard operators, verifies safety credentials, shows transparent pricing, and matches divers to trips through personalized Diver DNA profiles. If an operator will not share their certifications, they do not get listed.
As Featured In