Offshore at the north end of Dahab’s Bedouin village, the entry to this shore dive is through a small lagoon which descends from the reef top to an exit point on the reef at about 7m (23ft). The entry lagoon is hardly more than 1.5 m /5 ft wide at some points and sometimes acts as a funnel for wave surge or runout caused by falling tides, making it a demanding swim at times. However, just outside the lagoon is a sandy slop leading off to the North, it’s this wide patch of sand carpeted by thousands of garden eels that gives this dive site its name.

The shy garden eels that are usually wary of divers almost appear like fantastic dancers, waving to and fro in the current like synchronized swimmers but disappear as soon as you near them. Watching them pop out of the sand to feed on plankton is quite a sight as the sheer numbers create a landscape that resembles that of long grass sticking out of the ground like a garden.

Around the eel garden, you are treated by some fine coral growth with stony and soft species including Acropora, antler coral, plate, cabbage, elephant ear sponge, Dendronephthya and Xeniids along with plenty of Anemones. So apart for the eels, the site offers up a wide array of marine life and fish like bannerfish, parrotfish, angelfish, batfish, unicornfish, as well as schooling anthias and damsels. Stingrays handout near the the bottom and clam and pipefish are common as well making it great site for underwater photography.

So although the eels are the main attraction of this dive site it has a lot more to see, so make sure on your dive here to take the time to visit the neighboring reef teaming with life and picture perfect photography opportunities.

*Photo Credits: photos by Nemo’s great uncle, divemecressi, hazy jenius on flickr

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Dive With Thousands of Eels At The ‘Eel Garden’ Dive Site, Dahab was written by Noreen for Aquaviews - SCUBA Blog - Bringing You The Other 70% Of Our World

For those of you who are wondering what a Dugong is? Dugongs or Sea Cows are rare marine herbivorous mammals that closely resemble dolphins or whales in appearance but are related to elephants and are referred to as ‘sea cows’ because their diet consists mainly of sea-grass. Often confused with Manatee, that are found only in Florida, Dugongs have different shaped tails and swim in the shallow coastal waters were they find protection from large waves and storms. These unusual creatures are rapidly facing extinction as their numbers gradually decline, making dugong sightings for divers a rare thing indeed.

Abu Dabab is a semi-circular bay with a sandy bottom covered in patches of sea grass. With a maximum depth of just 15m-20m and shallows of 3m the bay is relatively shallow, however with the size of several football fields to cover, locating Dennis and Dougal is no easy feat.  Scuba Divers visiting Abu Dabab are required to fan out and dive 3-4 meters apart to maximize their chances of spotting the dugongs so if one is spotted, the others divers can signal in the rest of the group. Though difficult to find at first, once spotted, the dugongs attract large groups of people to it.

The Dugongs of Marsa Alam are so popular that ever increasing  groups of snorkelers join divers everyday just to get a glimpse of the creatures. One often feels sorry for the Dugong as tourists come within inches from the Dugong despite the fact that It is required to remain a minimum distance of 3- 4 meters away from the dugong at all times. However despite the large gatherings of divers and snorkelers all around, the Dugongs of Marsa Alam do not seem to be bothered as they proceed with their non-stop cow-like grazing.  This behavior is fairly unique as Dugong are known to be extremely shy creatures and will retreat whenever a boat or diver approaches.

Abu Dabab dives are all shore dives, and apart from the area’s most popular inhabitants, there are plenty of other interesting creatures that visit the sea grass beds such as guitar sharks, turtles and remoras. Large green turtles are frequently sighted in the reef and will also graze on the lush sea grass patches. Remoras frequently accompany the Turtles, Dugong or the occasional unusual looking guitar shark removing the parasites off them while hitching a lift across the bay. Still visibility is not too great, and apart from the above mentioned inhabitants and sea grass, there isn’t much else to see in the bay.

The main attraction of the Abu Dabab dives still remains the unique opportunity to witness this fascinating species that will one day sadly be extinct.  As you witness the smiling cow-like clumsy creature vacuum up the sea floor, you can’t help but feel frustrated that there are so few Dugong left in the world. So if you haven’t seen a Dugong yet and have it on your list of marine creatures to see, head on down to Egypt’s Marsa Alam and try your luck to trying to catch a glimpse of Dennis and Dougal.

photos from flickr by: m for matthijs , Frank Gloystein

Dive with Dennis & Dougal the Dugongs in Abu Dabab was written by Nevin for Aquaviews - SCUBA Blog - Bringing You The Other 70% Of Our World

The vast reef systems of Fury Shoals and St. John’s are located off the coast of southern Egypt between Ras Banas and Northern Sudan (just 16 miles from the Sudanese border). The caves here are actually deep cuts in the reef where divers can explore capacious swim-throughs, galleys and canyons while at the same time enjoying some of the most impressive hard coral scenery anywhere in the world.

The Sha’ab Claude dive site at Ras Banas, is one such impressive site with a large labyrinth of swim throughs, huge Porite corals and featuring a resident napoleon and often visited by White Tip reef sharks. This shallow dive of around 15m lets you leisurely explore the reef and interlinking passages with heavy black coral growth on the walls as you watch blue-spotted stingrays patrol the ivory-white sand on the bottom. Shafts of light stream down from holes in the cavern roof and cut through the blue water creating a stunning shimmering effect, perfect for underwater photography.

Further south at St John’s lying just outside the reef, there’s a coral labyrinth known as Umm Khararim or otherwise known as just The Caves. The name translates as ‘mother of the tunnels’, and that’s exactly what you get – a whole reef system with a maze of tunnels, closed and semi-closed chambers linked with coral passageways some of which are sufficiently wide for a couple of divers to swim alongside each other while others lead to dead ends. The maximum depth at this site is a shallow 18 meters. Keep a close eye out for scorpionfish hidden on the walls amongst the dense coral formations. The Gota Kebir is another massive reef, famous for its tunnels and south plateau. Here you can spot jacks and barracudas as well the occasional manta. The tunnels are ideal for novice cave divers.

Cavern diving in these southern reefs of Egypt is a year round opportunity and a great to explore some new, un-dived reefs and un-crowded reefs. The caverns are defined by a potent stillness unlike the high energy open-water currents that rule the popular dive sites of the North around Dahab and Sharm El Sheikh, which make them an absolute joy to dive!

*Photo Credits: photos by welshcathy, danielguip, danielguip on flickr

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Explore The Southern Coral Caverns Of Egypt was written by Noreen for Aquaviews - SCUBA Blog - Bringing You The Other 70% Of Our World

Originally built in the French shipyards of La Seyne in 1964 and known by several different names during the course of its life, the Salem Express was a 100 meter (300 feet) long Roll-on roll-off ferry with a bow that could be raised forward and upward to allow for embarkation and disembarkation of vehicles and passengers directly from her nose ramps. Based out of the Port of Safaga in Egypt, on the night of December 1991, it was returning from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia reportedly overloaded with pilgrims returning from their holy-Hajj-pilgrimage in Mecca. The captain who was well experienced in the water of this region chose an unauthorized shortcut between the mainland and the shallow Hyndman Reefs to reduce the journey time by an estimated two hours. Unfortunately on this occasion, there was an unexpected storm with gale force winds which caused the bow of the ship to strike with astonishing force against the Hyndman Reefs ripping apart its side causing the ship’s hull to rapidly flood with water. The ship reportedly sank within 10-20 minutes of striking the reef preventing an orderly evacuation using the lifeboats, resulting in the deaths of over 470 passengers with only 180 survivors.

Owing to the tragic loss of lives in the incident there is much controversy as to whether the wreck should be open to Scuba Divers or not. The ship itself is resting at a depth of 12 – 30 meters (39 – 100 feet) on its starboard side with its bow doors wide open. On descending the port side of the ship is merely 12 meters below the surface and is surprisingly intact. The lifeboats with the distinct “S” emblem are indications that they passengers didn’t even get the chance to lower them.

Diving the wreck is perhaps one of the eeriest experiences as claimed by most divers, owing to the tragic history, the wreck itself littered with debris such as luggage, personal belongings and furniture, and the fact that despite being underwater for over a decade, the wreck is barely covered in coral, almost as if the reef out of respect for the dead hasn’t colonized it as yet. Egyptian Naval Divers have ensured that all the bodies of the victims have been removed from the wreck, so the possibility of spotting or bumping into any remains of a corpse is remote.

Wreck penetration is possible but not recommended for beginners or intermediate divers, as the structure is weak and several passageways make it rather disorienting to navigate.  The corridors are accessible from a hatch in the portside, but there is absolutely no natural light inside, and your buoyancy must be perfect to navigate the corridor. Certain sections like the bridge, the restaurant and upper decks are fairly easy to access and make interesting areas to explore. The twin propeller blades and the smoke stacks are other external attractions of the Salem Express.

photos from flickr by: Philippe Guillaume, Michael Aston, Nataraj Metz, Keka , istvan_szucs

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Egypt’s Most Controversial Wreck Dive: The Salem Express was written by Nevin for Aquaviews - SCUBA Blog - Bringing You The Other 70% Of Our World

Here’s a look at the Best Dive Spots of the Red Sea:

Sharm El Sheik and Ras Mohammed, Egypt

Sharm El-Sheik on the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt is one of the most popular dive destinations of the Red Sea and has the best of what the Red Sea has to offer. With lush sandy beaches, tropical climate and exciting nightlife it’s a tourist destination with beautiful dive sites to explore. A couple of dive sites worth noting here are ‘the Light’ and ‘the Point’, where there are 130-foot drop-offs and multitudes of reef and pelagic fish. Shark’s Bay, a shore entry dive site displays a sloping reef and deep canyon offshore and is famous for manta rays. A 196 feet wall drop off into the depths just off shore, just south of Na’ama Bay called ‘The Tower’ is another popular site and is frequented by sea horses and ghost-pipe fish.

There are 20 dive sites within the Ras Mohammed National Park, including the famous Thistlegorm wreck, rated among the World’s Top 10 Wreck Dives. This Red Sea dive site has got plenty to see both inside and out the 400ft long container ship filled with motorbikes, trucks and rifles, with plenty of marine life around. Sightings of hammer-heads, jacks, trevallies and huge napoleon wrasses are reported here.

The Brothers Islands, Egypt

The Brothers or El Akhawein, are two small islands in the middle of the Red Sea. These Islands are for adventurous and advanced divers only and are the Red Sea’s most coveted diving destination. The two islands named Big Brother and Little Brother are a 5 minute boat ride apart . The Big Brother has a small lighthouse and two wrecks lying on its walls rich with marine life and amazing soft corals. However, strong currents are prevalent here. Little brother too has strong currents but it’s sites feature huge fan corals, caves and overhangs. Add the high likelihood of seeing sharks to this, and you’re guaranteed fantastic experiences at the Brothers Islands.

Dahab, Egypt

Dahab meaning “Gold”, is World famous for it’s Blue hole diving. The Dahab Blue Hole, known among diving circles as one the ‘World’s Most Dangerous Dive Sites’ as its inky blue depths have claimed a number of lives. It still continues to draw divers from around the World to its sites like ‘the Bell’ and ‘the arch’. ‘The Canyon’ is another of Dahab’s popular dive sites which starts at a round coral bowl that resembles a fish bowl, with lots of glass fish. It descends as a tube down to around 50 m with access and escape points at various depths. Other dive sites in Dahab include ‘Eel Garden’, ‘Golden Blocks’ and ‘The Islands’.

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Most of the Red Sea diving off the coast of Saudi Arabia is carried out from Jeddah. Compared to the more frequented resort areas of Egypt like Sharm El-Sheik and Hurghada, tourists find that Jeddah’s reefs are healthier and not as crowded with dive boats. This dive spot houses a number of wrecks such as ‘Boiler Wreck’, ‘Ann Ann Wreck’ and the ‘Miss Mara Wreck’. The KLM Reef and Ala’s reef offer some unbeatable coral dives. Virtually untouched coral heads covered in soft corals, clusters of Sea Anemones and the most reef fish having the best color are part and parcel of diving here. The undisputed best soft coral wall known to date in all of the waters off Saudi Arabia is unquestionably the 150 m section of the Redmah Wall and is a underwater photographers delight with the sheer choice of photo opportunities.

Aqaba, Jordan

With just a 15 mile stretch of coastline along the Red Sea, Jordan still has some notable Red Sea dives. Mostly shore dives with little chance to see sharks and other pelagic species, it has some beautiful reef dives including ‘Japanese Garden’, ‘the pinnacle’, ‘the tank’, ‘cedar pride’ and ‘Gorgone I’. Fairly shallow dive site with maximum depths ranging from 16 to 20m with a few going down deeper to 40m Jordan is a great place for beginner divers to experience the Red Sea.

Marsa Alam, Egypt

For a truly unique and unspoiled dive spot, Marsa Alam is the dive destination for you. Much of the diving done via liveaboard trips here and focus on eco diving and projects that are set up to preserve the environment and the beauty within the area. Elphinstone is a long, fingerlike reef some 12 miles north of Marsa Alam featuring steep reef walls covered with soft corals.Strong currents and plentiful fish life make it an ideal hang-out for sharks. Legend has it that a large arch in the Elphinstone reef, between 165 to 230 feet down contains a sarcophagus of an unknown pharaoh. The reefs here boast of rich coral gardens with schools of snapper, jacks, goat fish and banners. It’s also an excellent place to spot hammerheads, barracuda, grouper, snapper and yellowmouth moray eels.

*Photo credits: photos by Lars Plougmann, Markus Wollny, sharkbait, mattk1979, Rollie D OuTLandeR, Arabianescape.com, BBM Explorer on flickr.

The Best Red Sea Dive Spots was written by Noreen for Aquaviews - SCUBA Blog - Bringing You The Other 70% Of Our World

Vitaly Ivanov,Anna Filippenko, Dmitry Smerdov and Sergei Larionov were swept away by a strong current while diving at one of Egypt’s top dive locations in the Red Sea. The group were said to be among 23 tourists on board a Bohemia luxury wooden motor yacht, which runs dive tours in the area. The group was noted as missing when only 19 resurfaced. Authorities were notified and a search was sent out with no avail. As the search was called of at nightfall the 4 divers said they tried swimming back to shore.

Separated in the dark of the night and over 20kms away, Ivanov made it to shore at a near by village the next morning. Rescuers found the other 3 of his group later in that day.

The Red Sea is a very popular dive destination with it’s unique reefs as well as sharks. Spotting hammerheads, oceanic whitetips, bull sharks and tiger sharks among 44 shark species recorded here is what draws divers Red Sea diving despite difficult diving conditions like strong currents. No strangers to large dive tours, operators in Egypt don’t have a very clean track record and this sort of incident is not unheard of. Egyptian authorities have reported the deaths of 30 foreign divers last year alone.

Irresponsible operators? Or just bad luck? Here’s hoping both divers and dive operators take this incident as a lesson to tighten safety measure when diving in larger groups.

*Photos by star5112 and fearlessRich on flickr

Irresponsible Operators or Bad Luck? -The Survival Story of 4 Russian Divers was written by Noreen for Aquaviews - SCUBA Blog - Bringing You The Other 70% Of Our World

Accessible from the shore just a few meters from the rocky shoreline, entry directly into the Blue Hole pool is one option, but better preferred, is entry through ‘The Bells’ – a dive site formed where a deep groove cuts into the reef top just north of the Blue Hole at Dahab. ‘The Bells’ being so close to the Blue Hole it is often overlooked, in favor of its big brother. However, for the not so macho diver infact any diver so to speak it is a spectacular way to ease yourself into the complete dive experience. Entry into the Bells is like that of a chimney and often done head first. It’s a 27-30m descend into a completely vertical drop off into a clear stunning blue waters.  The sight is breathtaking and the coral growth as well as marine life spotted has been described by many a diver as a lot more impressive than the wall of the blue hole itself.

Gradually ascending up to 15m after exiting the Bells is where all the reef life is, the usual fishes and corals. Swim south to the external walls of the blue hole which is the best place to spend most of the dive.  The inside pool has very little left in the way of coral. End your dive by entering the inside of the pool and doing your safety stops there before exiting at the small wooden jetty.

The other way of going about diving the Dahab Blue hole is starting at the ‘easy entrance’ marked at the beach. The Blue Hole cave walls go down to a depth of around 100meters and is bottomless with unfathomable depths. ‘The Arch’ starts at around 56m with the base of the arch at around 120 meters and it connects the Blue Hole to the open ocean. The abyss Blue Hole and Arch is beyond the limits of recreational diving which some of the most experienced divers ignore while testing their limits. The cliffs around the dive site bearing lost divers epitaphs serve as a somber reminder for all to respect the limits and realities of the sport.

Dive responsibly and the Blue Hole is a dive of a lifetime and is guaranteed a dive site you will never forget. One image which will be etched in your memories for all of time if you’ve dived the Hole will be the shimmering sunlight on the coral above you and the deep blue fading to black below…

Dive Site: The Blue Hole / The Bells
Location: North Dahab, 28°34.367N; 34°32.207E
Description: Reef / shore dive / drop-off
Depth: 200 metres + (600 feet)
Visibility: 30 – 40 metres (100 – 130 feet)

Must Dive Sites- Dahab Blue Hole was written by Noreen for Aquaviews - SCUBA Blog - Bringing You The Other 70% Of Our World