Page 66 - AlertDiver_Winter2013

64 | WINTER 2013
There is plenty of diving north of Tiran, almost all of it
shore diving. Rather than owning boats, dive centers load
customers into jeeps and gear into trailers and head off road.
Groups are usually small, dive sites are quiet, and trips are of
good value, but shore diving requires a little more effort than
falling in from a boat.
A two-hour drive north from Sharm El Sheikh is the town of
Dahab, which offers a range of shore dives from shallow coral
gardens to the enigmatic Blue Hole. Away from the bright
lights of Sharm, the Bedouin culture of the Sinai shines. Dahab
is a chilled-out place and a hub for both freediving and technical
diving. The Blue Hole is a great dive, but a swim through its
deep arch should be undertaken only by trained and prepared
technical divers. The tunnel is at 180 feet and much longer than
it appears from the surface; there’s often a current flowing in as
well. When accidents happen here, they are not small ones.
Little Treasures
The relaxed nature of Dahab is echoed in the resort towns
farther to the north, Nuweiba and Taba, and it continues
underwater with many shallow sites ideal for slow
explorations. Seahorses, frogfish, nudibranchs, snake eels,
seamoths, ghostpipefish and mimic octopuses are more often
associated with exotic spots in southeast Asia, but they can all
be found regularly in the upper reaches of the Gulf of Aqaba.
Surprisingly, it was only after muck diving became popular
in Asia that divers really started to explore similar habitats in
Egypt and intentionally hunt for critters. Once they did, they
found many of the same Indo-Pacific species here. If you
are a photographer or naturalist who enjoys long, puttering
macro dives, you’ll find your Red Sea home in the quiet
resort towns of the Gulf of Aqaba.
Another attraction of the shore is the great Red Sea staple:
lionfish. Jetties, in particular, always seem to have a resident
pride. They’re at their most magnificent when a dozen or more
are pack hunting for silversides or glassfish just before dusk.
Red Sea lionfish always seem bigger and bolder than those
in other places; in fact it is common for Red Sea lionfish to
charge right up to you, warning you to stay off their patch. A
fish that swims directly at your lens makes for great photos.
At night they follow divers’ torch beams around the reef,
picking off fish dazzled by the light.
The jetty in Nuweiba is a classic spot for lionfish
reflections, but my abiding memory from a February visit
is bitter cold. For the uninitiated (and every visitor needs
this spelled out to them), the Red Sea may have coral reefs,
but it is very seasonal. At the height of summer the water
hits 86˚F, and most people dive in bathing suits. But in
February and March, with a biting wind and 66˚F water, it is
completely different — even when the sun is shining. Many
Europeans bring drysuits in this season. Foolishly, I didn’t,
and while it snowed on the hills in Jordan I froze on a coral
reef less than 50 miles away.
Theater of Dreams
Coral reefs are almost exclusively tropical, so the 20-degree
temperature cycle in the Red Sea is unusual. It doesn’t just
affect diving attire, it drives big changes on the reef, too.
Normally, reef fish mate throughout the year, so divers don’t
always notice it. In the Red Sea, however, there is a definite
spawning season. When the water warms up, the whole
place comes alive biologically.
Summer is my favorite time of year to visit, and I’ve
logged more than 20 liveaboard weeks here in the June/July
window. You don’t need to be a fish geek to appreciate it
either; this is biology on a grand scale.
We’re at the legendary Ras Mohammed. It’s right at the tip
of Sinai, and it’s the crossroads of the three arms of the Red
Sea. The reef here is a spectacular formation with two big
pinnacles just yards from shore and a wall that starts at the
surface and drops precipitously to a couple of thousand feet.
The wall is covered with red and purple soft corals, streamed
over by clouds of anthias and populated by reef fish of every
kind. There is great macro here, too; I always spy loads of
nudibranchs. But today the real attractions lie out in the blue.
Jutting out into the open Red Sea makes Ras Mohammed an
irresistible fish-spawning site, and today, the day after the June
new moon, it is heaving. There is a steady current pushing me
down the face of the wall and keeping the fish in tight groups,
neatly segregated by species. First up are a group of 30 large
batfish, but I ignore them instantly because behind them is a
huge block of bohar snappers the size of a house. The large
individuals are more than two feet long, and they are packed
Egypt
Cairo
Suez
Canal
Suez
Sharm El
Sheikh
Hurghada
Dahab
Taba
Eilat
Jackson
Reef
Ras
Mohammed
Daedalus
Elphinstone
Port Ghalib
Marsa Alam
Abu Nuhas
Thistlegorm
Gulf of
Suez
Gulf of
Aqaba
Red
Sea
Mediterranean
Sea
St Johns
Fury
Shoals Zabargad
Island
Brother
Islands