Deep Dive Dubai: Take a dip in the world's deepest pool

No acid trip could prepare me for this. With nitrox in a tank on my back, I float off the platform into an underwater urban abyss, eyes widening as the Earth drops away beneath me. In its place, a stark, blue Armageddon gapes 60 metres below like the jaws of a megalodon, minus the teeth. Tree roots gnarl out of rubble and twist like a witch's finger up crumbling brick walls. As we descend to 12 metres, my dive instructor, Jesper, motions for me to sink onto a motorbike and pose for the camera.

I can't see the bottom of the world's deepest pool, but I can make out the silhouette of those advanced enough to scuba dive its pit. In my periphery, realistic life-size props including a fibreglass convertible Mercedes Benz, chess set and billiards table are scattered among the debris of this sunken city. I flutter my fins towards one of the large glass windows on the perimeter. On the other side, my nieces are making their hands into hearts. The eldest, already bored, is slow mouthing "Are you almost finished?" It takes everything in me not to spit out my regulator and laugh.

I'm on an hour-long Discovery Dive for entry-level scuba divers at Deep Dive Dubai, the world's deepest pool and the latest in the emirate's long list of record-breaking attractions. To describe it as 'surreal' would be an misnomer. Dubai is known for pushing the envelope, but this is an extraordinary feat of imagination and engineering.

The complex, which initially opened more than a year ago as a free-diving facility, comprises 14 million litres of crystal clear fresh water (the whole lot is filtered every six hours), 56 underwater cameras and three levels of exploration staggered over a depth equivalent to the length of a 777 Boeing aircraft. For non-divers, there's a café with floor-to-ceiling windows to peer in and interact with divers.

Watch: A dip the world's deepest pool

While it may be symbolic of Dubai's proclivity for excess, what it provides in education and curiosity is remarkable. The facility offers training and certification, and caters to on average of 50 divers a day of all abilities, from snorkellers and certified divers to beginners like me who can descend to a maximum of 12 metres without any experience. The team recently launched 'Nomad Diving', which involves the use of a 'surface-supplied dive system', essentially an extremely long snorkel, to dive up to six metres. When I visit, two young women are using the centre rope to free-dive to impressive depths on one breath. My nieces are enthralled.

"If you ask any Emirati, they have family members a couple of generations back that were involved in the pearl fishing industry," says Danish-born Jesper Kjøller, a veteran technical diver who lists the 120-metre Britannic shipwreck (sister ship of the Titanic) as his deepest dive. With the origins of the concept rooted in Dubai's heritage, it's no surprise that Sheikh Hamdan, a passionate free-diver and Crown Prince of Dubai is the unofficial poster boy of the facility. The connection between pearl fishing and freediving is obvious, however, with its shallow waters and sand dredging, conditions in the Arabian Gulf are not ideal.