Red Sea logistics

Hi!

I will be in Tel Aviv in April, and would love to tack on a dive trip to the Red Sea beforehand. I'm looking for tips...

1) Looks like Egypt or Jordan are better than Israel, in terms of quality of dives. Although there's a recent trip report about Sharm that is disconcerting: 25 boats at dive sites, and not a lot of fish, crowded resorts (we're the quiet types). I'm used to Bonaire, 3 years in a row, and again this upcoming January. Am I going to be disappointed no matter what? I would like some coral architecture, which Bonaire lacks and I've only experienced snorkeling in Belize and Honduras...

2) Thoughts on diving from land vs doing a live-aboard? Will a live-aboard mean better access to remote sites, and therefore fewer people? Are the boats big? How many passengers and crew, usually?

3) Any advice on how to get there: seems to be different options.
a. Tel Aviv round trip from the US, then fly to Eilat (which means a 24-hour no dive time at the end), and overland to Jordan or the Sinai. Could overland to Eilat to avoid the no-dive delay, but not sure the extra 5 hours of bus time is worth it.
b. Three-way flight, from US to Egypt or Jordan, then to Tel Aviv, then back to US. Not sure if there are direct flights from Egypt to Tel Aviv...Expedia didn't have them, ElAl doesn't either.

4) If we do a three-way flight, what are recommendations for the BEST place to dive the Red Sea (since we might have more options, including further south than the Sinai)?

Thanks!!!

The diving in the Red Sea, either from Sharm or Hurghada is very good. If you want corals you will find them there. yes some of the dive sites can be busy with lot's of boats on them, in particular Shark reef and Yolanda in Ras Mohammed and jackson Reff in Tiran get very busy (as does the Thistlegorm). Having said that, on most sites it's not really a problem as the dive sites are large and (with the possible exception of those listed above) you don't feel crowded.

A live aboard will certainly get you to sites at different times to everyone else so that can make a difference.

Also the gerneral opinion is that diving in the southern parts of the Red Sea is better (Ican't speak from personal experience as I haven't been south) but I hear that the southis very definately best done on a liveraboard.

dougaldiver:

A live aboard will certainly get you to sites at different times to everyone else so that can make a difference.

Also the general opinion is that diving in the southern parts of the Red Sea is better but I hear that the south is very definately best done on a liveraboard.

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Yep.

Some answers...

1. It goes like this: Eilat is nice (here is an example from a friend's shootage, last week http://www.tek-dive.com/phpforum/viewtopic.php?p=7514#7514 at the bottom of the page), Aqaba appears to be nicer than Eilat, and Sinai is by far better than both!
It can be crowded, but dive sites are big enough to allow some space, and places like Ras Mohammed and Tiran have some currents that naturally take care to some spacing between groups...
I recommend a liveaboard which eventually allows you to dive more, and most of the times you should be able to arrive at dive sites earlier than daily boats. Still, there's allways a liveaboard that gets earlier than yours

If you want to see rich coral reefs, in my opinion you don't have to go far to the south. There aren't many dive sites that can compare to Ras Mohammed, and none can't beat Ras Mohammed on a good day! The straits of Tiran also have nice healthy reefs, so you can take a liveaboard in the area of Tiran-Ras Mohammed and the surroundings and it cannot dissappoint.

2. Ditto. More dives, earlier arrivals in sites, what else matters? There are boats from all sizes and any number of divers from 6 to probably 30 in some boats. As there are dozens (if not hundreds) of boats- plenty to choose from.

3. I don't think you'll find any flights from Tel Aviv to any place in Egypt. You can save some hours by flying to Eilat, and perhaps you can arrange with the dive operator transportation from Taba to Sharm (at least it's true if you arrange the Safari through an Israeli operator). So option "a" is the better one. Option "b" will probably take the same amount of time as "a", and so many flights will get you tired nonetheless.

4. Southern Egypt has almost the same diver attraction as Sinai, so you can expect dozens of boats at sites in the area of Hurghada and southward. Last month I went on a Safari down to Marsa Alam and Elphinstone reef, and in some days Elphinstone was so crowded that it was hard to find a parking place for the boat (almost like in Tel Aviv ).

Hi !
I think that your timing is not that good. January is winter. Eventhough that it hardly ever rains in sinai, the weather is a bit cold and the winds are high (so is the sea). Just to let you know that the best time is summer (june-august).

After saying that, here are my tips for the diving spots along the route you mentioned.
Israel - Eilat - Not much to see except for 2 medium and small wrecks, eel gardens, some reef and small fish. However, the dives can be made by yourseld (without a guide) and cost around 5 $ per dive if you have your own equipment.
Jordan - Aqaba - A medium wreck with lots of fish. Other stuff are like Eilat, but a bit better.
Egypt - Sinai - Dahab - My favorite place for beach dives. You have amazing texture of corals and underwater architecture (like starting a dive in a whole on the reef and ending it on the outer reef ) in the water and most of it is undamaged. You have the famous blue hole over there and many other amazing sites. No need to go on a liveaboard here.
Egypt - Sinai - Sharem - This place has a national park with amazing dives. Here you can see sharks, eagle rays, tune, napoleons, grupers and in herds. In addition, you have pleanty of wrecks including the famous one Thiselgorm. In this place the best way to dive is by a liveaboard.

This past September I did a 3-day live-aboard safari in Sharm with Marina Divers from Eilat. We dove the Straits of Tiran (Jackson, Woodhouse, Thomas, Gordon, and North and South Laguna reefs) out of Sharm; we did not go to Ras Mohammed.

Like most everyone else, I strongly disagree with the bad report recently posted. The coral life was unbelievable and the fish were abundant. There were many other boats at some of the sites, but I never saw a diver from another boat underwater and rarely saw other divers from my boat other than my small group. And on many dives I could see forever; 200 foot (60m) viz! As clear as the best Florida Springs.

The one dive on at a "local" site (Sharm's shoreline) was less impressive as far as life, but the reef structure made even that dive extremely interesting anyway. To offset that, one unnamed site that we dove (maybe north of North Laguna) was the most vibrant, lush, healthy, varied and abundant coral garden that I expect to ever see anywhere! And the water clarity at most all of the sites allowed so much light to penetrate that the reefs were very colorful.

We did 12 dives in three days, 4 the first day, 5 the second, and 3 the last. I sat out one dive on the third day (the north side of Jackson reef), and of course that was the dive where everyone saw about two dozen Hammerheads swimming below them with one Hammerhead coming up and checking out each dive group at close range.

Going on a guided safari with a group from an Israeli dive center made the trip very easy and not very adventurous. Non-adventurous was what I wanted for my trip to Egypt. We met at the dive center in Eilat in the evening, were driven down to the boarder crossing at Taba, guided through the crossing, and got on a waiting bus. When we got to Sharm at 2am we were led to the boat, given a quick boat briefing, assigned our cabins, and went to sleep. At the end of the live-aboard trip the bus back to Taba was waiting for us. All very well planned and guided. The boat was very nice and the food was abundant and adequate; not at all first-class, but a fabulous bargain ($400 for a three day live-aboard and transport from/to Eilat; nice).

I was the only one in the group that didn't speak Hebrew, but everyone spoke English to me and made me feel part of the group. No problems there. The guide from the dive center, Itai, was super and a lot of fun.

If this is what you're looking for, I don't hesitate to recommend Marina Divers and a live-aboard safari to Sharm. (Their web site is almost entirely in Hebrew, but you can give them a call; they all speak English there.) If their schedule does not match yours, I'm sure that many of the Eilat dive centers' safaris would be just as well organized. I'll do a similar safari next time I go to Israel, just a longer live-aboard.

Bad report? I posted a comment about our experiences. Maybe fish life and the corals are better in September than mid-October.
The only things I commented negativel on was the number of divers on the sites - on some, we had to dodge other divers or couldn't see because of the bubbles coming up from divers below. Fish life - again - is seasonal they say, I don't know. We didn't have a lot of fish. On many of the local dive sites, the coral is dead or silted over - that's not seasonal.
I could of course have written how fantastic everything was, but then - it wouldn't have been true.
If your experiences are better than ours, good for you. I wish we would have had that as well.

We have dived in Eilat, Aqaba, Dahab, Sharm, liveaboards out of Marsa Alam, liveaboards out of Port Sudan.

Discarding Sudan (great diving but a PITA to get to from Tel Aviv – the flights just DON’T matchup), we liked-from worst to best – Eilat, Sharm, Aqaba, Dahab, Marsa Alam

Eilat – not a bad place to get wet – you’ll need dive insurance – can be purchased locally and it’s good in Jordan and Egypt as well – or go with DAN. Our experience (YMMV) is that guided dives in Eilat are a joke – 20- 30 minutes, mostly shallow dives – twice we came back with 1800 PSI on a 12L tank – never again. The good thing about Eilat (as opposed to Jordan and Egypt) is you can rent a tank and do your own shore dives – our shallow dives last about 90 minutes on the same 12L tank. If you haven’t dived in a while be prepared to do a check out dive and showing some basic skills-mask clearing etc.

Sharm – too crowded (the town, the docks, and the dive sites) for our tastes. When we dove the Thistlegorm there were 9 boats moored, same at straights of Tiran – the most important part of the dive briefing is when they tell you the color of your mooring line – pay attention or you’ll wind up on the wrong boat. Some of the dives were good, some were OK, and some were less than OK. Disclaimer – we’ve not been to Ras Mohamed (although understand the best time for Ras is Aug/Sep)

Aqaba, Jordan – pretty laid back and pretty good diving. Downside is there’s not too many dive sites – not sure how long you dive trip will be.

Dahab – waaaaay laid back and pretty good diving. Two signature dives – Bells blue hole and the canyon are awesome, the rest of the dives are good. You can dive the best of Dahab in 3-4 days

Marsa Alam live aboard – Get to Hurghada and your liveaboard company will get you the rest of the way. There’s a ferry from Sharm to Hurghada but the day we needed it, it wasn’t running, scramble mode ensued and we ended up taking a taxi from Dahab, across Sinai, under Suez Canal and down the east coast of Egypt proper – not recommended- the scenery never changes The diving is quite good, and although you’re not exactly the only boat in the water, it’s manageable. We did Elphinstone and it was a blast - hammerheads 2 meters away!

Don’t know what the others are talking about – there are direct flights from Tel Aviv to Cairo – we took one in Oct 2005.

Don’t know where you are coming from but Red Sea/Gulf of Aqaba in April is not nearly as warm as Bonaire/Belize/Bay Islands in April. Expect water temps of 21-24C. I’d wear a 5mil – at least.

If we were in Tel Aviv and had under a week to dive – we’d head to Dahab. More than a week? Look into a liveaboard leaving out of Marsa Alam. If moneys tight, a few days in Aqaba and a few days in Dahab would be fun and cheap!

Peace

Wow! Thanks for all the advice. I'll look into all these options: seems like there's enough to choose from we should find something to keep us happy. And if we like it, we'll come back another year, eh?

The temperature will probably be a shocker, yes. I just dive the Caribbean, really. Live in southern New England, but only dove once there in August with a borrowed 7mm, in enough current that I was actually warmer than my Caribbean dives for all the swimming I had to do. (That Caribbean is so nice and lazy!) I wear a full 2-3mm in the tropics, and have even bought a hood b/c I get chilly. Think a 5mm will be enough in 70-degree water?

tamarinda:

Hi!

I will be in Tel Aviv in April, and would love to tack on a dive trip to the Red Sea beforehand. I'm looking for tips...

I just got certified last week, but I've lived in Israel 25 years, so for what its worth...

1) Looks like Egypt or Jordan are better than Israel, in terms of quality of dives. Although there's a recent trip report about Sharm that is disconcerting: 25 boats at dive sites, and not a lot of fish, crowded resorts (we're the quiet types). I'm used to Bonaire, 3 years in a row, and again this upcoming January. Am I going to be disappointed no matter what? I would like some coral architecture, which Bonaire lacks and I've only experienced snorkeling in Belize and Honduras...

I suggest you go to Aqua Sport in Eilat. They also Have a dive center in Taba, where their boat is and take you over the border--less hassle . They don't do liveaboards, but will arrange it for you. My brother(DivesWithTurtles) went On a trip out of there and says it was the most fantastic reef/fish diving anywhere.

2) Thoughts on diving from land vs doing a live-aboard? Will a live-aboard mean better access to remote sites, and therefore fewer people? Are the boats big? How many passengers and crew, usually?

Ask my brother

3) Any advice on how to get there: seems to be different options.
a. Tel Aviv round trip from the US, then fly to Eilat (which means a 24-hour no dive time at the end), and overland to Jordan or the Sinai. Could overland to Eilat to avoid the no-dive delay, but not sure the extra 5 hours of bus time is worth it.
b. Three-way flight, from US to Egypt or Jordan, then to Tel Aviv, then back to US. Not sure if there are direct flights from Egypt to Tel Aviv...Expedia didn't have them, ElAl doesn't either.

Rent a car and drive down through the Negev, stopping at the Rimon Crator. Then back up by the Dead Sea, stopping for a float. That gets rid of residual shoulder pain from heavy tanks. Or is it just out of shape me....

4) If we do a three-way flight, what are recommendations for the BEST place to dive the Red Sea (since we might have more options, including further south than the Sinai)?

Thanks!!!

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BarbaraSHW