North vs South ... major differences?

[large_diver]

Completely agree with Elphinstone. It is a pretty cool dive site...but lots of safari and day boats

I've never been to the Brothers or Daedalus...

St. John's and further south...boats tended to be fewer. Some reefs we had 3-4, some we were all alone. Granted, this is based on 1 liveaboard experience....

Chris

My experience is exactly the opposite.

There are often too many safari boats around the Brothers, Daedalus, Elphinstone, or St-John's reefs, given the relatively small size of most of these reefs and their off-shore location. For example, in high season it's not uncommon to see up to nine safari boats moored on Small Brother (diameter less than 500 meters). That means:
- up to 200 divers, all eager to jump at the same place to watch the sharks
- up to 18 zodiacs almost constantly roaring around
- a forest of lines tying the boats to each other and to the reef
- fumes and noise of the neighboring boats' generators all day and night.

And that's the same story at the other famous and fashionable places in the South.

As Red Sea Shadow rightly said, during a live-aboard to the Brothers and Daedalus you'll have more opportunities to see sharks than in the North, and the corals are really gorgeous there as well, but choose the right moment or you may become fed up with the "human factor".

 

[hg frogman]

St-John has good dive sites (and some very good e.g. Gotta Soraya), with varied and interesting topography (e.g. Caves), and there are more reefs there (not all interesting though). Hence St-John's moorings are likely to be less crowded than Brothers' or Daedalus' indeed.

But for shark action and corals, in my opinion St-John can't compare to the Brothers and Daedalus. Sharks sightings have become much rarer now at St-John (overfishing ?) and the corals, though often very good, are not as dense/colorful there as at the Brothers (in my opinion). But yes, one can still experience a feeling of remoteness at St-John, when the main sites are not too busy. And there is more variety of dive sites than on a Brothers/Daedalus/Elphinstone safari.

 

[String]

Wrecks - North
Big stuff - South

Generally anyway

IMHO the further south you go the better the diving gets.

 

[GiulianoLC]

The southern dives sound wonderful but I've read there are very rough seas to get out to the farther offshore locations (Brothers) and the conditions can be very uncertain. I've had my manta and whale shark experiences, would love do dive with hammerheads but don't need it everyday. We're thinking of going in September. Any liveaboard suggestions? The older I get, the more comfort I want!!

 

[samaka]

I have collected a lot of information on the different diving areas in the Red Sea on my personal website WELCOME TO AZIAB from the 12 years I've been living in Egypt working as dive guide/instructor in most of the locations along the Egyptian main land coast line. I have worked both with daily diving and on liveaboards so you find information about most dive sites and dive locations. There is also a lot of interesting articles in my online magazine about Diving - Red Sea - Egypt that might help THE EQUALIZER

If you want more specific info feel free to PM or email me.

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