Shark Reef is the Red Sea’s most famous and most popular dive site. It is easy to understand why, especially if you have dived there in the summer, with its rich and varied corals, and abundance of reef & pelagic fish.

Due to its geographic location, the Sinai Peninsula enjoys a rich source of plankton and other food stuffs that are transported to the area by the strong currents of the Red Sea. Due to their geographic location, the Shark & Yolanda reefs being at the very tip of the peninsula, it is advisably that only experienced drift divers dive here as the currents can be very strong. You can also have large surface swells, especially in the winter, that make exiting the water rather tricky. Having said that, on a bad day Shark Reef is a great dive, on a good day Shark Reef can blow your mind.

The eastern side of Shark Reef is a vertical wall that descends to a depth of over 700 meters (2300 feet). Keeping the wall on your right shoulder, you skirt around a coral outcropping with small caves, and an amazing array of, mostly soft, corals. If you keep an eye on the blue you have the chance, especially in the summer, of seeing large shoals of twin-spot snappers (lutjanus bohar), longfin spadefish (platax teira), orbicular spadefish (platax orbicularis), various trevallies (caranx lugubris, caranx melampygus, carangoides bajad and caranx ignobilis) and bluespine unicornfish (naso unicornis). You can also sometimes find large schools of blackfin barracudas (sphyraena qenie), forming large circles and, if you are really lucky, sharks hunting the barracudas.

After you have finished at Shark Reef, still keeping the reef on your right shoulder, you come to a saddle that connects Shark Reef to Yolanda Reef. At the top of the saddle you find a sandy plateau of about 8m which extends behind both Shark & Yolanda, separating the reefs from the fringe plate. There are a lot of soft corals on this plateau, and it is common to find turtles, especially hawksbill turtles (eretmochelys imbricate), dining in this area. There is also a resident female juvenile green turtle (chelonian mydas) whom has been gracing the area with her presence for the last three or four years. Crossing the saddle can be difficult especially when the currents are moving from the back of the reef to the outside of the reef causing strong down currents in this area.

Once you have crossed the saddle, you come to Yolanda Reef. Yolanda reef is a beautiful and rich coral garden.  Once you have crossed the coral garden, at a depth of approximately 20m you find the remains of a loading derrick from the Cypriot cargo vessel, the Yolanda, which ran aground on the western side of the reef in 1980. The ship was carrying, amongst over items, a large consignment of bathtubs and water closets (toilets). In 1987 during a violent storm the ship sunk into the blue and now rests between 160m – 200m (approx.) leaving behind large portions of her cargo scattered on the reef and in particular on a second saddle, this one connecting Yolanda with the Satellite Reef, or Turtle Rock. In this area you can usually find numerous morays (esp. gymnothorax javanicus), blue-spotted sting rays (taeniura lymma), scorpionfish (scorpaenopsis oxycephala), stonefish (synaneia verrucosa) and crocodilefish (papilloculiceps longiceps).

Continuing across the saddle of Yolanda you come to yet another reef, admittedly much smaller than the first two, often called Satellite Reef, occasionally Turtle Rock. Here you find another beautiful coral garden which, at the back, has a very friendly depth of 5m enabling you to complete your safety stop in a very pretty spot.

You have here the chance to see just about everything and anything the Red Sea has to offer. It is a truly amazing dive site.

Type of dive: Drift

Difficulty: Advanced to Experienced

Pros: One of the world’s best reef dives, with a beautiful reef wall and a large variety of marine life, both reef and pelagic

Cons: Often very strong currents with strong surface swells

JACKSON REEF, STRAIT OF TIRAN

Jackson Reef is the most northern reef in the Strait of Tiran, and has two of the most beautiful coral gardens out of all the reefs around Sharm. On the northern side (“outside Jackson”) you also have, if you’re lucky and the weather conditions allow it, the chance to see scalloped hammerheads (sphyma lewini). The two coral gardens, one on the west corner and the other on the eastern corner, boast nearly every type of coral that you can find in the waters around Sharm. There is also a beautiful red anemone at a depth of 28m on the west side coral garden. Dives can be made as mooring or drift dives, but care must be taken when encountering the strong currents that are typical around the Tiran dive sites otherwise you can find yourself pushed out in to the shipping channels.

Type of dive: Drift, semi-drift, mooring

Difficulty: Beginner to Experienced

Pros: Amazing corals and marine life

Cons: Strong currents that can catch the unwary. The site can get very crowded.

RAS UMM SID, LOCAL

Umm Sid is a very popular place for divers and snorkelers alike. The site, with a lighthouse that marks the beginning of the western side of the Strait of Tiran, has a small wooden jetty that allows easy access for divers, snorkelers and bathers. While there are, sometimes, moorings allowing boats to make both drift and mooring dives. Umm Sid is famous for a large collection of sea fans that start from a depth of 12m and descend to a depth of 35m (approx.). The site also boasts a beautiful reef wall, and a plateau with a forest of coral pinnacles. Often, especially in the summer, people can spot sharks and rays on the corner of Umm Sid. There is also often shoals of barracudas and spadefish. The reef wall offers splits, ledges and small caves. Umm Sid is also a great place for night diving. A word of caution though, the local current can be very strong and can make it very difficult for snorkelers and divers (those entering from the shore) to return to the entry point. Above Umm Sid on the shore you’ll find El Fanar beach (“fanar” is Arabic for “lighthouse”) that offers a great place to enjoy the weather and scenery, as well as grand food and drinks; if you have family members who don’t dive and don’t enjoy boat travel, then a day at Umm Sid is a great place to spend the day.

Type of dive: Shore, Drift, Semi-drift and mooring

Difficulty: Beginner to Experienced

Pros: Beautiful corals and marine life. A good place for night diving.

Cons: Local current can make returning to entry point tricky. Can get overcrowded, often in the afternoon.

SHARKS BAY, LOCAL

Okay, with such famous dive sites as Shark Reef, Jackson Reef or Ras Umm Sid to choose from, why would anyone in their right mind say “One of my favorite dive sites is Shark’s Bay”?

You’ll probably never see hundreds of snappers there, or a shiver of sharks, and no wrecks (except for sun-wizened dive guides), so why would anyone cite Shark’s Bay as one of their favorite dive sites?

For a start, it’s an excellent spot for a night dive, teeming with crustaceans, echinoderms and cephalopods. Shark’s Bay is predominately made up of hard corals (and sand) so can look … without wishing to sound too harsh … dreary in the daytime but at night all these corals (or at least the polyps) come out to feed. It’s also an excellent place for photography. Secondly, admittedly you have to look a little harder in the daytime, but Shark’s Bay has a very healthy population of stonefish and scorpionfish (devil, bearded, and smallscale). Yeah, I know, these are the ‘ugly bastards’ of the fish world and not to everyones taste but there are plenty of ‘pretty fish’ such as butterflyfish, angelfish, gobies, blennies, anthias and anemones (including at least two pink anemones). There have also been seen ornate & robust ghostpipefish, juvenile starry puffers (which look like swimming olives), juvenile yellow-mouthed morays and juvenile coral hinds. And there’s not just the small things there either. Admittedly not a regular basis, people have seen here whale sharks, leopard sharks, eagle rays, mantas, fantail rays, honeycomb rays (or leopard rays), guitarfish and even oceanic white tips.

One of the best spots in the area is a glassfish pinnacle (28m) but don’t look for it on the dive site maps as it seems, amazingly, to have been overlooked. Here you will find a very healthy pinnacle with a large pygmy sweeper colony protected by several red-mouthed groupers. On the pinnacle itself you can find numerous types of shrimps and a very active cleaning station, while usually somewhere at the base of the pinnacle you can find a couple of resident scorpionfish. Often you’ll also come across a large malabar grouper that likes to stop at the aforementioned cleaning station and, while it is being cleaned, is quite happy for you to ‘float’ next to it (usually at all other times the fish won’t have anything to do with you).

Type of dive: Shore

Difficulty: Beginner to Experienced

Pros: Very easy access to water. Good place for night dive. Very good for photography.

Cons: Beach can get crowded. Often visibility is poor. Lots of rubbish in several places (esp. close to jetty).

CAMPSITES 1, 2 & 3, MARSA BAREIKA, RAS MOHAMMED NATIONAL PARK

For those of you who fancy getting away from it all, why not try some shore diving and camping in the Ras Mohammed National Park? The campsites are positioned on the northern shore line of Marsa Bareika and, as such, are off-limit to all dive and snorkel boat activity. This unique condition means that not only is the area above the water very calm and peaceful (it is the desert accommodation) but so is the dive site and fish like quiet. It is possible to find here large marine life such as rays, turtles and sharks, small critters such as ghostpipefish, frogfish and often unusual nudibranchs. The accommodation is army-style tents (alas without a/c) and there is also a shower and toilet block nearby. Breakfast, lunch & dinner are provided by the bedouins who manage the site, as well as as much tea (Egyptian and European style), coffee, soft drinks and water you could care for. A typical trip would involve arriving at the campsite around midday, taking lunch before an early afternoon dive and then later a sunset dive (imagine surfacing and finding nothing but the Milky Way above your head!) before your evening meal. Afterwards you can laze by the camp fire and chat or just listen to the Red Sea lapping at the shoreline. The following morning you would typically rise about an hour after sunrise for an early morning dive.  And then, after taking your breakfast, journey back to Sharm. If you expect 5 Star room service on your holiday then this excursion is probably not for you but if you’re looking for something a little bit different, wanting to escape the hustle and bustle of Naama Bay and a chance to experience something quite unique then this is for you!

Type of dive:  Shore

Difficulty: Beginner to Experienced

Pros: Pristine corals. Unusual marine life. Lack of boats and other divers. Diving in Sharm as it use to be.

Cons: Not for adrenaline junkies. Amenities basic. Can be very windy.