Dahab: no night dives at Canyon

Apparently, night diving at the Canyon, Blue Hole or any of the southern sites (essentially all the Dahab sites north and south of the police check-points) is not allowed anymore. We got turned away just before 5 pm at the northern check point - I guess with all the gear and tanks on the pick-up it was pretty obvious that we didn't just want to have dinner up there...

Is this another new CDWS rule or is there another reason / regulating body behind it?

That's a shame if it is some new regulation. I did a night dive at the Canyon a couple of years ago and it's one of my favourites.

There's no regulations regarding that. At least nothing in writing

Well, there must be something, or we wouldn't have been turned away at the checkpoint. When I first enquired about the possibility of doing the Canyon at night (as I also did it a couple of years ago and really liked it), our dive guide informed me that it wasn't allowed anymore, but that it was a very recent regulation of about 2 weeks ago. They thought that we would be able to get around it by going there early, but 5 pm was obviously too late.

Since we were all ready for a (deep) night dive, we decided to do the lighthouse deep instead, which in the end turned out to be a wonderful dive, one of the best night dives I've done, with lots to see and not too many other divers around except for the last 10 minutes or so.