Red Sea Diving!

August 10, 2009 5:21 PM

Looking for good scuba diving opportunities in the Red Sea!

My wife and I will be able to go to Israel and Egypt on a much needed vacation on my way back from a business trip. Aside from the Pyramids, Alexandria, Jerusalem and the Holy Land stuff we'd also like to get in a day or two of diving. We're both PADI certified advanced divers and I've heard there are some fantastic scuba spots in the Red Sea. Given the turmoil in the area over the last few years I'm wondering if the Egypt side of the Red Sea has some good locations with decent dive companies.

Anybody been diving there recently? Any hints or lessons learned?

posted by Lord Fancy Pants to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (4 answers total)

I did a couple of days worth of diving in Eilat about two years ago. All the dives I did were shore dives and I was pretty sick of hiking down the beach with all my gear after the first few dives. I'm not sure if the Egypt side of things has boat diving but it would be worth the trip across the border just for that. Of the dives I did there, I liked the wreck diving the best. Not surprisingly, there are a fair number of boats sitting on the bottom of the dead sea.
posted by foodgeek at 5:30 PM on August 10, 2009

Not recent, but can vouch for Sharm el-Sheikh for excellent diving, nearly as good as the Great Barrier Reef. Any amount of dive centers, we went out twice a day in a well equipped dive boat, but cannot remember the name of the center.
posted by lungtaworld at 5:49 PM on August 10, 2009

Dahab is my favourite. Don't dive in Eilat if you can dive in Egypt. The reefs in the area around Eilat and Aqaba are nowhere near as good as further south, and the diving is much more expensive. Sharm is good if you like the whole resort town, could be almost anywhere feel. Dahab is quieter, laid back and small, giving it a much nicer feel. The dive sites are virtually the same (Dahab is only 1 hour north of Sharm), there are great dive companies (PADI certified), and accomodation is cheaper.

Just keep in mind when you're planning that leaving Dahab or Sharm automatically involves a fair elevation gain even if you go by road since both are sandwiched between the mountains and the sea. Make sure you give yourself time in your destination of choice to dive, and leave safely.

I learned to dive in Dahab, and have done all my diving in the Red Sea - it is absolutely amazing and worth the effort if you can find a way to make it happen.

Out of curiousity, when are you going? There's some cool diving in Alexandria as well, but not in the winter (the Med gets too cold). A huge part of the original city is in the Bay and on a day with good water clarity you can see all kinds of statues and maybe even the remains of Cleopatra's palace. Pretty cool.
posted by scrute at 8:02 PM on August 10, 2009

Another vote for Dahab here. The diving is gorgeous and the town is a million times better than the concrete Eurotrash playground that is Sharm-el-Sheikh.
posted by Lucie at 8:17 PM on August 10, 2009