Ocean White Tip Shark
Elphinstone is a 375m long, off-shore reef with drop-offs descending to over 100m. Elphinstone is ranked among the top ten dive sites in the world.
The site features an abundance of soft corals and almost every kind of sea life can be seen here. The reef is angled slightly to the north,
which causes a constant current over the northern and southern plateaus.
These plateaus are an ideal location to catch a glimpse of different shark species like Oceanic White Tip, Scalloped Hammerhead, Whit Tip Reef, Grey Reef, Silver Tip and Thresher Sharks.
Elphinstone Reef features a wide range of sharks which tend to change through the year.
The Marsa Alam Dolphin House also called the Sha’ab Samadai Reef is a popular and famous dive site of Marsa Alam and Coral Reef Divers regularly take divers to this wonderfull reef formation. It is an offshore reef with a lagoon where a pod of Spinner Dolphins live. This wonderful reef creates a lagoon where the visibility is usually very good. It offers wonderful scuba diving or snorkelling but the highlight here is definitely the resident spinner dolphins. It is often possible to swim or to dive with these intelligent and fascinating creatures, making it a truly unforgettable experience! Sha’ab Samadai has wonderful swim-throughs, beautiful drop-offs and several pinnacles with great coral formations. The spot generally has good and easy conditions and is suitable for all level of divers.
Spinner Dolphins
Dugong (The Sea Cow)
Abu Dabbab is one of the most famous dive sites in the Red Sea and of all of Egypt.
It is one of the few places in the world where you can dive with the very rare and endangered Dugong (The Sea Cow).
In fact, there are two resident Dugongs in the Abu Dabbab bay named Dennis and Dougal.
This dive site also features friendly giant Green Sea Turtles that you can swim with up close and personal.
In the shallow water, it is not unusual to spot the bizarre looking but completely harmless Guitar Shark.
In addition to the big stuff, there are also superb macro subjects such as the Ornate Ghost Pipefish,
the rare Thorny Seahorse and the delicate Hairy Pygmy Pipehorse!
All this Exceptional and Rare marine life makes Abu Dabbab a very special spot and a must dive for anyone visiting Marsa Alam.
Fury Shoals is, despite its somewhat ominous name, a very pleasant area. It’s not so much a single reef as a system of reefs,
extending from quite near the coast a good distance into the Red Sea, so there are dive sites catering to everything from fairly
new to very advanced divers. Typical depth ranges from 10 metres to around 35 metres.
Among the system’s reefs, divers can find shallow, sheltered dives, wall diving along sheer drop-offs,
fast drifts and even a few caves and wrecks. The area is also a good place to see hammerhead sharks.
The name of the system, Fury Shoals, stems from the fact that this part of Egypt can be quite windy, which can drive up the waves around the reef and make some dive sites inaccessible.
However, with the number of sites available, it’s almost always possible to find a sheltered site, regardless of wind direction.
Fury Shoals
Lionfish
Sha'ab Marsa Alam is a boat dive from the port of Marsa Alam.
Shaped like a horseshoe, Sha'ab Marsa Alam dive site has a central lagoon with various pillars on the east side.
The pillars are covered with an abundance of soft corals that attract many species of reef fish, such as moray eels and lionfish.
The northern wall is exposed to the waves and currents, but it is full of life.
There is some beautiful and varied diving here and depending on your skills,
Coral Reef Divers will show you a dive without current in the middle of the lagoon, or a drift dive on the north side.
The SS. Hamadam was a coastal cargo vessel of 500 tons launched in 1965 with a length of 65 metres and draught of 4 metres.
The wreck lies approximately 68km SSE of Marsa Alam, south of the Wadi El Gamal National Park
entrance and approximately half a mile south of the phosphate terminal at Abu Ghoson.
The port side of the ship protrudes just above the water line at low tide.
Parts of the wreck are so shallow that it is possible to snorkel them.
The vessel lies on its’ starboard side in two sections.
Suitably qualified divers may be able to swim into parts of the wreck including the pilothouse,
engine room and cargo hold. The most impressive and relatively intact features include the bridge,
the rudder and stern propell.
The bow section has broken away from the aft section and lies slightly further down the reef from its
original position is quite impressive complete with anchors and the fo’csle contains a forklift truck as well as the anchor windlass and winches.
The wreck has attracted many types of coral and marine life including napoleons, lionfish,
parrotfish, surgeon fish, butterfly fish and moray eels.
Hamada Wreck