The Red Sea is known worldwide as one of the finest places to do your diving.
The variety of sites and underwater life on offer make it the perfect place to tick plenty of boxes when you’re on your diving holiday.
Our three centres in Egypt – Sharm el Sheikh, Port Ghalib and Wadi Sabarah – provide the opportunity to do top-quality daily diving in both the north and south of the wonderful Red Sea.
And while we’re very proud of the places we can take you to, we’re even more proud of our guides who will show you around them.
They all love the region and all it offers – so we asked them to tell us their favourite spots to explore beneath the surface.
Here are a few of the responses…
Sharm el Sheikh
Elise Watling (Emperor Sharm el Sheikh dive guide): My favourite dive site is Thomas Reef (pictured below) in Tiran. I love the plateau coral garden and the contrast of the coral garden front to the outcropped back with its over hangs. Any empty dive site works for me – but I also love Ras Ghamilla from our coastal dive sites. It’s a huge site so you can’t cover it all in one dive. The Gorgonian Sea fans are some of the biggest we have in the Red Sea. Totally mind blowing!
Dawn Jones (Emperor Sharm el Sheikh dive guide): My favourite site here is probably Naama Bay itself. Our house reef here is full of everything you might see on the boat. Moray eels, bluespotted rays, nudibranches, pufferfish (my personal fave!), octopus, turtles and even the occasional eagle ray! Maybe I’m a little biased, as I’ve spent a lot of time diving this site and I know where to look for certain things, but it’s still always a surprise when something comes out from the blue.
Port Ghalib
Hamdy Mahmoud (Emperor Wadi Sabarah centre manager): The best dive site for me is Abu Siyal at Ras Eltorfa. As a dive site you can see everything there (pufferfish, goatfish small fish life, turtle, picturesque pinnacles) but the coral reefs are just amazing. And it works for all level of divers with a good dive plan.
Tracy Atkinson (Emperor Red Sea dive guide and manager): My favourite dive site in Port Ghalib is Habili Gooda – a set of small pinnacles covered in corals. Purple soft corals with fire corals – a winning combination – it’s teaming with fish and anything can swim by. That’s not to mention the safety stop on the pinnacle top which is smothered in antheas and, if you’re lucky, leopard blennies.
Wadi Sabarah
Tracy: It’s the south side of Marsa Samadai – a great place for an underwater bimble. Going through shallow sea grass you get to hunt for the small camouflage critters then the shallow reef wall with juvenile fish and small schools of goatfish and snapper. The highlight is the small habili, a bit away from the reef, with a glassfish and cardinal fish pinnacle and a resident baby green turtle.
Josephine Roberts (Emperor Wadi Sabarah dive guide and yoga coach): Most inspiring for me (or my current favourite at least!) is Shouni Bay. The dive begins with swim-throughs around a network of sculptural hard coral and opens into a hard coral landscape that gently slopes down to fields of soft coral and pinnacles on the outside of the reef. You never know what you will see here, turtles, sharks, anything is possible, but always guaranteed is the magnificent coral gardens themselves. Exquisite beauty.
Find out more about any of our Egypt dive centres and see which site could be your favourite. If you want to know more please feel free contact us and our team will answer your questions.