Shark’s Bay – Love it or Loathe it
21:51
Okay, with dive sites such as Shark Reef, Thomas Reef or Ras Umm Sid to choose from, why would anyone in their right mind say “One of my favourite 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, oh why! (do girls love horses?), would anyone cite Shark’s Bay as one of their favourite 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, with lots of macro and little currents. It is quite easy to spend 90 minutes on a dive and not drop below 8 meters.
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 and, if that’s you, there are plenty of ‘pretty fish’ such as butterflyfish, angelfish, gobies, blennies, anthias and anemones (including at least two pink anemones).
And there’s not just the small things there either. Admittedly not a regular basis, I’ve also seen here whale sharks, a leopard shark (just the one), eagle rays, mantas, fantail rays, honeycomb rays (or leopard rays) and, of course, the bluespotted ray. I also know guides who have seen guitarfish and oceanic white tips.
I’ve seen robust ghostpipefish (there has also been sighted ornate ghost pipefish), juvenile starry puffers (which look like swimming olives), juvenile yellow-mouthed morays and juvenile coral hinds.
The reason for these, I think, is there is very little current action in Shark’s Bay which is why it is such a popular place for training dives too.
My favourite spot in the whole area is the 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).
Shark’s Bay also hosts, I believe, the two fiercest anemonefish in the whole of the Northern Red Sea. On a sandy plateau at about 14m, you come to a very nice coral head (often with two large morays inside it) and next to this is a bubble anemone inhabited by some seriously aggressive fish. If you believe anemonefish don’t have teeth (which I’ve actually heard some dive guides say), spend a few minutes near this anemone and then tell me they don’t have teeth. I swear these fish are reincarnated sharks.
Best time to dive Shark’s Bay? Obviously at night, but before 8AM is equally good (i.e. before the day boats arrive to ferry all those divers and snorkelers to the Strait of Tiran) as is an hour before sunset (once all those day boats have deposited their guests back on terra firma).
Love it? Loathe it? It’s all the same to me; Shark’s Bay is one of my favourite 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, with lots of macro and little currents. It is quite easy to spend 90 minutes on a dive and not drop below 8 meters.
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 and, if that’s you, there are plenty of ‘pretty fish’ such as butterflyfish, angelfish, gobies, blennies, anthias and anemones (including at least two pink anemones).
And there’s not just the small things there either. Admittedly not a regular basis, I’ve also seen here whale sharks, a leopard shark (just the one), eagle rays, mantas, fantail rays, honeycomb rays (or leopard rays) and, of course, the bluespotted ray. I also know guides who have seen guitarfish and oceanic white tips.
I’ve seen robust ghostpipefish (there has also been sighted ornate ghost pipefish), juvenile starry puffers (which look like swimming olives), juvenile yellow-mouthed morays and juvenile coral hinds.
The reason for these, I think, is there is very little current action in Shark’s Bay which is why it is such a popular place for training dives too.
The reason for these, I think, is there is very little current action in Shark’s Bay which is why it is such a popular place for training dives too.
My favourite spot in the whole area is the 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).
Shark’s Bay also hosts, I believe, the two fiercest anemonefish in the whole of the Northern Red Sea. On a sandy plateau at about 14m, you come to a very nice coral head (often with two large morays inside it) and next to this is a bubble anemone inhabited by some seriously aggressive fish. If you believe anemonefish don’t have teeth (which I’ve actually heard some dive guides say), spend a few minutes near this anemone and then tell me they don’t have teeth. I swear these fish are reincarnated sharks.
Best time to dive Shark’s Bay? Obviously at night, but before 8AM is equally good (i.e. before the day boats arrive to ferry all those divers and snorkelers to the Strait of Tiran) as is an hour before sunset (once all those day boats have deposited their guests back on terra firma).
Love it? Loathe it? It’s all the same to me; Shark’s Bay is one of my favourite dive sites.
0 comments