Diving the Canyon in Dahab

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Razmataz78

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Location
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Last year I took my OW in Dahab. Had a lot of great dives, but never dived the Canyon, as the dive center told me it was only for AOW or higher.

I am going to take my AOW this year in Sharm, and I am thinking about going to Dahab for a day to dive the Canyon. However, now that I think about it - is AOW really enough to dive the Canyon? Shouldn't you be cavern/cave certified? As far as I understand there are only a few exit points once you are in the Canyon.

This is not a question about whether the dive center will let me do the dive with an AOW - I am pretty sure they will. I am more interested in hearing from people that have done the dive. Is it a "true" overhead environment? And if so, why is it ok to dive it without cave/cavern training?
 
I agree with Asser. There is no silt, plenty of light and enough exits. It's a lovely, easy and risk-free dive. I especially enjoyed the view of sunbeams penetrating the ceiling. A nice school of glass fish at the end point at 20 meters to top it off, enjoyment for all. :)

Keep an eye out for the elusive Sea Moth in the shallow pool where you enter and exit the water. And if you have some air left, see if you can find the Eel garden to the north.

Enjoy,

Art

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Txs for the replies. Now I wan't to dive it even more!

Great pictures of the seamoths - We actually did see a pair of them last year in the shallow pool! (We were diving the Coral Garden) :)
 
The Canyon is the site where most dive shops in Dahab usually do the deep dive during AOW. It has a sandy bottom starting at about 30m (sloping down to 50+), good for kneeling down and doing those little maths exercises etc. If they do it by the book, you should enter and exit the Canyon the same way - straight down from the rim at about 17m, in which case you do not enter an overhead environment at all. The overhead part comes from the alternative (and frequently used) exit through the so-called "Fish Bowl". Last time I dived there, my dive OP discouraged us to exit that way because of damage done to that little cavern by too many divers and trapped air.
And yes, it's a great site, but it can be very very busy at times.
 
There is no silt, plenty of light and enough exits. It's a lovely, easy and risk-free dive.

Enjoy,

Art

The Canyon is definitely lovely, but not necessarily an easy risk-free dive. I have not been following death statistics in Dahab in the last 10 years, but in the 70s until early 90s, many "Canyon Deaths" were attributed in the newspapers to the "Terrible Blue Hole"- because of either the reporters ignorance or perhaps the "Blue Hole" mythic reputation as a "Death Trap" that sucks and kills divers.

So the poor Blue Hole was blamed for some of the people who died in the nearby Canyon.

The Canyon not only offers closed ceiling environment, it reaches to quite a depth and most of the ceiling is tight and one can easily get entangled if sticking too much to the ceiling. In some times, vis can drop because of too many divers kicking sand in the bottom, and there aren't many exit points to the outer see, while at some depths there isn't too much room to simply turn around.

So there is some risk which can be minimized when diving appropriately.

Enjoy it! :wink:
 

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