The sea in Dahab is turquoise-transparent, the shore zone is formed by coral reefs has a weird form, creeky with caves and canyons. There are about 20 dive sites in Dahab, each of which is unique and interesting for diving in its own way. Dahab is like a magnet – attracting thousands of divers, who love to dive in a calm, relaxing atmosphere in a unique due to its beauty place in the world.

Ras Abu Galum

Ras Abu Galum is a protected area since 1992 (Ras Abu Galum Managed Resource Protected Area), the territory is 500 squared kilometers.

Ras Abu Galum is a practically untouched coral reef, a picturesque coast line with deep valleys in the high mountains. This corner of nature, preserving it’s untouched beauty,  has the tropical climate interact with the Mediterranean one, what makes the flora and fauna very rich.

Ras Abu Galum is divided in to North and South parts.

Diving in North Ras Abu Galum will become perhaps one of the most memorable, interesting and beautiful dives. In the beginning you will see a place, where during the earthquake that took place in the fifties of last century, a mass of old corals collapsed, in continuation a fascinating underwater view and abundance of reef fauna will open in front of you. The maximum depth on this dive site is 17 meters.

The South Ras Abu Galum is safely protected from waves and currents with a coral barrier. Wonderful underwater plateau will open in front of you, giving a chance to enjoy the view on the pink corals, barracuda and sea breams shoals.

El Bells

El Bells is situated 250 meters north the famous dive site Blue Hole. El Bells s one of the most unusual dive sites of Dahab, it’s a deep and narrow crack that looks like a well leading you to a little, but very nice arch at the depth of 30 meters. El Bells has its name due to the sound that you hear when by accident the divers hit the narrow walls of the well with their tanks.

At 30 meters depth after the well a beautiful wall of corals leads to the south where through a col that allows you get inside the Blue hole. The dive in El Bells is really fascinating, but be sure you go in to the narrow well one by one with a little interval to have the opportunity to enjoy your way down, instead of squattering in the bubbles of your buddy under.

Blue Hole

Blue Hole – one of the most famous dive sites in the Red Sea, a very suitable place for technical diving and the hidden in the hole at the depth of 54 meters so named Arch is a dream for a lot of technical divers.

The shape of Blue Hole is almost circled; the width is – 150 meters, depth – 110 meters.  Underwater the “Hole” itself is connected with the open sea with a long “corridor” called the Arch, that is 26 meters long, the top of which starts at 52 meters. Quite a nice place is the coral garden close to the col near the entry point. A lot of divers consider Blue Hole a mystical place, but, perhaps, it’s one of the most popular dive sites in the Red Sea, there are always lots of people there, the shore is overflowing with lots of Bedouin style cafés with nice, cozy chill outs, and the coral reef separating the Blue Hole from the open sea make it a very calm place. You surely will enjoy the road to Blue Hole that goes along the sea shore among stone blocks.

The Canyon

The Canyon is situated 10 km away from Dahab, before the Blue Hole. The entry is better done through a little shallow lagoon that leads you to the open sea. Not to damage the reef while entering we recommend you to start the dive during the high tide.

The Canyon itself is a picturesque crack on the slope of the reef, going down to 54 meters, the bottom of which is covered with soft white sand. When exiting the canyon you have a chance to observe an unusual  phenomenon – the overhang of the canyon as if a sponge absorbs the air the divers breathe out, letting it go through, creating the champagne bubbles effect.

You should take a look at the coral garden that is on the right side after you pass the lagoon. It’s fauna is really various.

besides seeing the canyon itself, you can also do an interesting drift from a place called Rix Reef, which is a bit north from the Canyon. You will see a vivid wall of the coral reef.

And how amazing the Canyon is at night! You should take the advantage of doing a night dive there during the full moon, when the soft moon light creates a unique surreal scenery with lively bright red sponges, sea-fans, chaotically lying around sea stars and brittle stars and twinkling in the night glass fish.

Ras Abu Helal

Ras Abu Helal, which means “Cape of the growing Moon”  is situated 3 km before the Canyon dive site. At this point the coast actually has a slight indentation but the reef forms an underwater buttress around which the dive takes place. You descend to a sandy lagoon at the depth between 7 and 12 meters, keeping the reef to the left, explore the underwater promontory with its beautiful coral garden full of groupers, lion fish, butterfly fish and sometimes turtles.

The western wall of the promontory descends into the blue and at the depth of 30 meters it is ploughed by a straight split that gave this site the name “The Small Canyon”, yet this part  is available only for technical divers

Eel Gardens

The site owes its name to a huge population of Garden Eels (Gorgasia sillneri). It is satiated right in Dahab just 1,5 km north the Lighthouse and is a wide, covered with white sand slope from where hundreds of Garden eels come out and wave with the waters. You can stop at the coral garden on your way back: here between table corals and some Massive pore corals swim unicorn fish, butterfly fish and in the crevices some small Grey morays find shelter.

It is wise to enter the water at high tide so that you can swim over the reef than rather walking on it.

Lighthouse

One of the most beautiful and rich dive sites of Dahab is situated in the Masbat area, perhaps named after the lighthouse situated 100 m west the dive site. One of the most attended and easy access dive sites, what doesn’t make it less attractive.

Lighthouse is a delightful place for underwater photographers and videographers. The dive site is open and interesting for divers of all levels, and attractive at any time of the day. Here you can meet parrot fish, lion fish, groupers, octopuses, Spanish dancers. Time to time you can see big turtles, rays and even manta rays.  Beautiful are its sandy slopes covered with sea grass, the cape of the bay going down to more than 25 meters forms fancy cracks and curves. Every dive at lighthouse is a guaranteed ton of positive emotions, making you want to dive there again and again.

The Islands

Islands – a fantastic dive side – picturesque underwater labyrinth, overfilled with life is situated close to the Lagoon, where Dahab’s 4-5 star hotels and another area called Medina are. Here you will do a calm and exciting dive to little depths (just 17 meters).

Here sometimes you lack eyesight abilities to get the chance to see all this richness of colors and life forms. Due to little depths the dive site is always full of sun light, what makes it especially bright and joyful.

Here you can enjoy the fast and graceful barracuda, and bulky napoleons and groupers, as well as lots of other curious species feeling quite comfortable with human’s presence.

Be careful entering the dive site, as you will have to do it through a little crack in the reef , the sides of which are especially loved by sea urchins

Moray Garden – Golden Blocks

Moray Garden is situated aside from Dahab, in a beautiful lagoon, where the majestic bit pinky due to the sun mountain slopes come almost to the water

Here you can meet a number of dive instructors with their students, as the dive site is very suitable for doing courses due to a easy entry protected from the waves and gradual depth increase. Enjoy yourself in a cozy chill out in one of the shore cafés, where you can check out the Bedouin cuisine and have some fresh juice.

The diving route permits exploration  of another site at the same time which is situated just a hundred meters further to the North called the Golden Blocks due to its two hard coral towers of golden color.

Moray Garden can be done with a round route, but then the dive will be quite a continuous one. The underwater world of this site is very interesting, though the morays in honor of which the site was named weren’t seen there for a while. Perhaps, Moray Garden is a suitable place to start your acquaintance with Dahab’s dive sites, to do the warm up dives, pick up your weights and start a course.

Three Pools

Three Pools is near by Moray Garden. In this reef platform three natural pools with sandy bottoms, from 3 to 5 meters deep aligned one after another. In each of the pools the temperature of the water differs. Here you can meet the rare striped eels and a big number of slate-pencil sea urchins.

You better do the dive in Three Pools during the high tide, so to have a chance to pass from one pool to another without difficulties. Straight after the pools there’s a slope covered with a terrific coral garden that leads to the open sea. This garden is full of soft corals, anemones, butterfly fish, unicorn and parrot fish.

When the weather conditions allow, we advise you to prolong your underwater travel and reach Moray Garden or go even more south to the sandy bottom and enjoy the Um Sid dive site with its table corals and large barracudas.

The Caves

The Caves, perhaps, are is one of the extreme Dahab dive sites. The entry is quite easy if the weather conditions are calm – just a giant step from the reef. The caves, that gave the name to this site, are right in the depth of this reef. Covered with sponges and black corals, caves are an extremely interesting place to explore.

Entering the site you should be careful as here the waves are quite high as a fact of the tide waters hit the reef edge. But the main extreme starts when exiting, here you will have to pull yourself up on your hands, immediately starting to feel the gravitation after the under water’s weightlessness, and wait for the next wave to make  you  move forward on the reef and get up from your knees. Having the knee-pads of your suit damages is a normal thing what however doesn’t really bother you against the positive emotions full filling you after this dive.

Gabr el-Bint

Gabr El Bint the most distant from Dahab dive site. Here you can get only on foot, with a camel or on a boat. Gabr El Bint is a part of Nabq protected area. The Underwater world of Gabr El Bint’s reefs is practically untouched, what is the reason for an unbelievably reach flora and fauna.

The dive route goes along an incredibly beautiful reef wall. Here you can see wonderful and magnificent sea fans (Gorgonia), unusual and interesting tangles of soft corals. Besides a local attraction are crocodile fish, whose typical color of the head indeed reminds you a crocodile’s head. To notice them is not so easy – they bury themselves into the sand and remain static waiting for the prey – various small fishes. Besides, other Gabr El Bint’s inhabitants are blue spotted stingrays, parrot fish, cornet fish.

Gabr El Bint is practically all the time full of dive boats and yachts, what is easy to explain: what can be more pleasant than a one day dive safari on a marvelous white boat, that will take you for a ride along the astonishing rocky shore to a magnificent place where you will enjoy the charming underwater world of Gabr El Bint, and sunbathing in between the dives.

Ras Mohammed

Ras Mohammed – the south cape of the Sinai peninsular that separates the gulf of Aqaba from the gulf of Suez. An impressive mountain chain formed by the fossils of corals with flats, dunes, valleys, areas of mangrove trees formed among. Ras Mohammed is a National park with an unbelievably reach flora and fauna and densely populated reefs. The dominating part of the park is the sea. Annually thousands of tourists, especially divers, stop here to see the magnificent reefs of the National park.

We offer you a one day dive-safari to the most astonishing reefs of the Ras Mohammed National Park– Shark Reef and Yolanda Reef.

Shark reef is famous for the diversity of fauna and underwater landscape. Here hundreds of barracuda and batfish shoals pass, you can see unicorn fish and black tip sharks. Here you can also find a garden of pink corals of unbelievable beauty. Dives in the Shark reef also include visiting the Anemone City dive site, situated at the depth of 20 meters, being a sort of a balcony facing the deep blue. The name the site got due to the high population of anemone.

Approaching the Shark reef, from the boat you can see the famous Shark Observatory

Going a bit south you find yourself at Yolanda reef dive site, where at the depth of 10-25 meters there’s the Cypress trade vessel “Yolanda”, that was wrecked here on the way to Aqaba in 1980. Baths, toilet sinks, boxes with whiskey and even a BMW 320,  that belonged to the captain, lie. The vessel itself being unstable and was dragged down to 200 meters during one of the storms.

Yolanda Reef is also rich with fauna – here you will find napoleon fish, blue spotted stingrays, scorpion fish, crocodile fish

Tiran

We offer you to do a one day dive safari to the east of the Tiran strait, to the mysterious island Tiran.

Tiran is a part of the Ras Mohammed National Park. The shape of the island is similar to an orange segment and from the east shore of the island the Foul Bay opens, to the south from which there are mangrove forests in which a small population of sea cows (dugong) could be seen.

In the surroundings of the island, in the Tiran straits there are lots of interesting reefs and wrecks to do dive – Jackson reef, Kormoran, Laguna reef, Gordon reef. Those diving in the Tiran straits can be sure to meet the beautiful and rich reef fauna. Turtles, white tip sharks, grey reef sharks, hammerheads, eels, parrot fish, butterfly fish, unicorn fish, batfish, groupers, barracuda, surgeon fish  - and this is not all to be seen….

Thistlegorm

Underwater secrets lovers are strongly recommended to include in to their diving packages the fascinating one day dive safari to the Thistlegorm – wrecked in October 1941

in the Gubal strait English cargo ship.

Thistlegorm (in translation from Gallic “Blue thistle”) – belonged to the English company Albin Line. The length of the ship is 126,5 meters, of 4898 tons’ displacement, equipped with three-cylinder engine, 1860 horse power, allowing it to speed up to 10 knots.

Thistlegorm left the Glasgow port in May, 1941 with cargo: ammunition, bomb, antitank mines, motorcycles, cars, two tanks, two locomotives, field generators, spare parts to planes and cars, medication, car tires casing and rubber boots. The cargo was meant for the 8-th British army, dislocated in Egypt. The ship was doing quite a safe route - round Africa and through the Suez channel to the port of Alexandria, what allowed to shelter from the German forces, controlling the Mediterranean.

Thistlegorm was already crossing the Red Sea, when there was the order to anchor in the Gubal strait, to wait for the chance to cross the Suez channel, temporary blocked by a German ship exploded on a mine.

During the night from October,5 to October,6 1941 two bombers Heinkel He III from the German airbase on the Crete island, noticed the Thistlegorm and attacked it, having the  hold №4 in which the ammunition was, damaged. After a strong explosion the ship cracked in to two pieces, and two locomotives despite their weight 126 tons each and the fact that they were tied to the deck, were catapulted into the air, sinking to the seabed about 30 meters away. Thistlegorm sank abruptly in an upright position on a flat, sandy seabed 30 meters deep. The crew and captain were saved by HMS Carlisle, a ship happened to be nearby, but 10 members of the crew died during the attack.

In 1955 the ship was discovered by the famous J.E.Cousteau’s oceanographic ship “Calypso”. But Cousteau however didn’t mark the position of the wreck, thus Thistlegorm once again was forgotten for almost 40 years, after being discovered by an Israeli skipper.

Our days Thistlegorm is one of the most popular wrecks in the Red Sea that is visited by divers from around the world.

If you decide to dive to Thistlegorm, you will see a wreck unusual in terms of its integrity and richness. During the dive you will explore the perfectly preserved screws, steering wheel, machinegun and antiaircraft gun on the upper deck, cargo winches, railway cisterns, and anchor. And exploring left by the German bombs gap in the fourth hold, you will discover lots of ammunition, two overturned tanks in idle condition, and cargo trailers for ammunitions. 30 meters south-west the wreck, at the depth of 28 meters, parallel to hold №4, one of the locomotives is lying. The second one is opposite hold №2 on the right hand side 20 meters away, at the depth of 28 meters

Besides, it will be interesting to explore the holds of the ship, where you will find loads of cargo as jeeps, motorcycles, trucks, generators and rubber boots.

Numerous underwater creatures like anemones, barracudas, groupers, butterfly fish, crocodile fish have colonized the wreck, as well quite often you can see dolphins, turtles and whale sharks passing by.