Types of Dives in Red Sea

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ajy733

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# of dives
100 - 199
My husband and I have logged 100 dives and are advanced PADI open water certified. We have been diving in Roatan, Indonesia, Akumal and most recently Andamans. Now we are looking at going to the Red Sea. I haven't even got to the point of choosing a boat yet but have a couple of general questions about the Red Sea. What sort of profiles are they. We are not Nitrox certified and found the one thing we didn't like about the Andamans, other than the dead coral from the temperature raise, was that everything was deep and then there was nothing above about 70 feet so much of the dive seemed to be spent floating around looking down. We really enjoyed Indonesia both Bunaken and Lembeh since there deep dives but as the profile progressed we were much shallower and the fish and coral were awesome at all depths. Also generally how long are the dives? If anyone has suggestions about locations I am all ears. Our preference is reef to wreck.
 
Profiles in the Red Sea vary from steep walls to shallow plateaus. Coral growth is normally not associated with depth. I.e., you can dive the very same site at 30m (100ft), 20m (66ft) or 10m (33 ft) and still find good corals and marine life.

For some site description, take a look at Red Sea Shadow web site (in the sig line).
 
The reefs in the Red Sea almost always go all the way to the surface, even the off shore ones, and have beautiful shallows. In Egypt I personally like Brother Islands best, because it has "everything" (including a couple of wrecks with lots of life). But it is usually combined with other destinations like Deadalus and Elphinstone, which have similar features, but are just not as colorful and varied inmo.

You should get NITROX-certified, it's perfect for long and shallow dives. Totally unsuitable for deep dives.

cheers
 
As said -- virtually all of our dives, except a couple of wrecks, were dives where you could do a variety of profiles, and work your way shallower as the dive went on, with no loss of good things to see.

I would highly recommend the boat we went out on, the MV Tala. They made sure everybody on the boat got the kind of dives, and the length of dives that they wanted. Their goal was to extract the maximum amount of fun possible from every diving day, and they succeeded!
 
You'll find that most of the dives conducted in the Red Sea will be of a similar profile. Light penetration is good and you find the reef extends from depth to the surface. In fact, the most beautiful part of many reefs is in the shallow water when you get maximum colour from the light and a huge amount of fish life.

Topography varies from walls that drop to 800 metres (Shark Reef, Ras Mohamed) but there is often a fairly narrow slope from the fringe reef with some flat sandy parts in places but then heading for the inevitable drop-off into the Abyss. The Eastern coast of Sinai is much deeper than the Suez coast so there's more bottom and less drop, and then as you head down into the South of the Red Sea you are back in the deep water again.

Pretty much every reef dive we do here will hit maximum depth for only a few minutes and gradually shallow up. Some locations mean you are down past 20 metres for an extended time to see the best of the reef, but if you run low on air quickly, it's not far back to the reef plate where you can make your ascent and enjoy safety stopping in the amazing colours. Unless there is a reason to go below 30 metres, there's not a lot of point at most locations, because the best stuff is shallow. I very rarely even get there when I'm guiding.

A typical first dive of the day for me would be (Jackson Reef) 8 - 10 metres for 10 minutes slowly down to 18m after 15mins, turn around drop down to 27 metres for the Red Anemone and the black coral bush with the long nosed hawkfish, back up to 18m for the wall, 100 bar (30-35 mins for the average diver) up to 15m, 60 bar up to 10m, safety stop on 50, exit on 40, probably a good 10 - 15 minutes shallower than 10 metres in the north coral garden, which almost nobody ever goes to, for some reason. That's a kind of default dive profile for much of the diving here.

Different operators have different guidelines as to which divers they will allow to do what. There are local laws relating to maximum depth (30m unless you have Deep diver training), solo diving and decompression diving; beyond that some might say that you are required to dive with a guide if you have less than a certain amount of experience, but a guide is certainly handy to have around - cos we know where all the best stuff is, of course!

The Southern Safaris in St. Johns, or Elphinstone, the Brothers etc. are probably the most highly rated in terms of Red Sea diving, but they can be a little more expensive, it depends a little on where you set sail. You can also safari around Sinai and cover a lot of reef that the day boats don't get to.

Are you intent on the liveaboard? Most of the best stuff is accessible through daily dive excursions as well.

Have fun!

C.
 
Thanks for all your help. We have limited our choices to either the MY Blue Seas doing St John's in early November or the MY Emperor Superior doing Simply the Best. Leaning towards the St John's trip as it is quite a bit cheaper and seems to have the things we are looking for. Any additional advice
 
If you prefer reef is it a must that you do boat diving ? If not or you want to do both I would consider Dahab, awesome diving just off the beach(s) and some boat trips if you prefer.

Some info here :
  1. Bannerfish Bay : Diving at dive site Bannerfish Bay
  2. Bells and Blue Hole : Diving at The Bells and Blue Hole
  3. Canyon and Fish Bowl : Diving at the Canyon and Fish Bowl
  4. Caves : Diving at dive site the Caves
  5. Daniela House Reef : Daniela Reef
  6. Eel Garden : Diving at the dive site Eel Garden
  7. El-Shugarat : Diving at dive site El-Shugarat
  8. Gabr el-Bint :
  9. Golden Blocks : Diving at dive site Golden Blocks
  10. Islands : Diving at the dive site the Islands
  11. Lighthouse Reef, Masbat : Diving at dive site the Lighthouse at Lighthouse reef
  12. Lion Fish Rock : Diving near the Oasis at dive site Lion Fish Rock
  13. Mashraba, Romans Rocks : Diving at dive site Mashraba
  14. Moray Gardens : Diving at dive site Moray Gardens
  15. Napoleon Reef :
  16. Ras Abu Galum : Diving at dive site Ras Abu Galum
  17. Ras Abu Helal or Small Canyon : Diving at dive site Ras Abu Helal or Small Canyon
  18. Ras Umm Sid : Diving at the dive site Ras Umm Sid
  19. Red Tooth Trigger Bay : Diving at dive site Red Tooth Trigger Bay
  20. Ricks Reef : Diving at Ricks Reef
  21. Salah's Place : Diving at dive site Salah's Place
  22. Sha'ab Khanzir : Diving at dive site Sha'ab Khanzir
  23. Shoe Stump :
  24. Three Pools : Diving at dive site Three Pools near the Oasis
The best dive sites and top diving locations in Dahab rated by divers since last year.

  1. Rated 5.0, 6 ratingsRas Abu Galum
  2. Rated 5.0, 2 ratingsNapoleon Reef
  3. Rated 5.0, 1 ratingsEl-Shugarat
  4. Rated 5.0, 1 ratingsGolden Blocks
  5. Rated 5.0, 1 ratingsRed Tooth Trigger Bay
  6. Rated 5.0, 1 ratingsRicks Reef
  7. Rated 4.9, 8 ratingsEel Garden
  8. Rated 4.8, 17 ratingsBells and Blue Hole
  9. Rated 4.8, 4 ratingsLighthouse Reef, Masbat
  10. Rated 4.7, 3 ratingsDaniela House Reef
 
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