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The Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba offers some of the greatest places for diving and snorkeling in the world. Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada are the most famous. Dahab is a third strong candidate, together with several smaller resorts. If you want service go for the big places, if you want to be alone with the ocean, check the smaller places.
Dahab is in some ways an unlikely resort: the beaches are not very good, the nearby coral reefs are since long gone.
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But there is a mood here which is very appealing. The main attractions of Dahab are the unique on-the-ground restaurants, a mixture of Hippie and Bedouin styles and developed over a few decades. Large cushions and low tables are placed next to the sea, and decorated with colourful cloths. Most of these restaurants have fish stalls in front, where you pick the fish of your choice and get it prepared according to your wishes. Delicious, quite affordable, but a bit up from the price level of the average Egyptian restaurant. After finishing your food, you just lean back in the cushions and rest for as long as you wish.
While Dahab quickly runs out of daytime attractions, there are plenty of small companies offering a wide range of day trips.
Hurghada was once just a tiny fisher village, with a location that seldom brought strangers here. Even in late 1970's this was the situation, but with the nature around, the clarity of the water, and the endless opportunities for divers, Hurghada was destined to become an Egyptian centre for pleasure tourism.
Today, the result is a stretch of 20 km with beach hotels. Most of these hotels are organized in an attractive way, but far from the true Egypt of great monuments, traffic jams and mud brick houses.
But this makes Hurghada a successful tourist resort for divers and swimmers. Huge crowds of Egyptians, Saudis and other Arabs have since long joined the stream of Europeans and Americans going there throughout most of the year.
There are a couple of drawbacks, though. Non-hotel beaches are not terribly great, but often crowded. While the fish life is just what you hoped for right off the beach, there are no corals there anymore. This can only be discovered by joining one of the many boat expeditions out to the nearby islands. Giftun is the largest, and lies about 10 km from Hurghada.
Hurghada is in reality three main centres and numerous self-contained tourist villages now growing into one body. To the north, lies the place that is closest to being a town, Ad-Dahar, which has more than half of the total local population, and the the most price worthy hotels and restaurants. A couple of kilometres south, comes Sigala, a place that suffers from being between Ad-Dahar and New Hurghada a few kilometres more to the south. There are some hotels there, some restaurants, but relatively few tourists. In New Hughada total tourism comes alive, offering every amenity a visitor is looking for.
Sharm el-Sheikh was founded by the Israelis, who felt a need to improve control over the land they occupied in 1967. This is still characterizing the place. Now, when Sharm el-Sheikh is all about tourism, the only reason to go there, will be to discover the areas around. And that's a good reason, too.
Sharm el-Sheikh has a ferry running on Hurghada, and good communications going up on either side of Sinai.
Diving is compulsory when around the Red Sea. The coral reefs and the tropical fish, are among the greatest you can get across.
The clear blue waters between Sharm El Sheikh and Hurghada hide some of the Red Sea's biggest surprises, such as stunning reefs and mysterious shipwrecks, the legacy of the maritime trade that has flowed through the region for millennia. Strewn across the Straits of Gubal, gateway to the Suez Canal, the reefs of this region are as rich in history as they are in natural beauty.
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This area includes dive sites in Shaab Mahmud and Shaab Ali, the Straits of Gubal and Hurghada, spread across 74km (40 nautical miles) of open sea between the tip of Ras Muhammad and the Egyptian mainland at Hurghada. The sites can be reached form either Sharm El Sheikh or Hurghada.The range of coral species is astounding, and while the occasionally rough sea conditions in these open waters can cause some damage to the reefs, most of the coral growth is in excellent condition. The area boasts some extensive reef systems, incorporating branching
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Acropora, vast fields of cabbage coral, bommies and outcrops of massive species such as Favites and Porites and gently waving dendronephthiid soft corals.
One of the real highlights of diving in this region is the well-preserved, accessible shipwrecks that litter the seabed across the entrance to the Gulf of Suez. At least six major wrecks lie in easy reach of Sharm El Sheikh or Hurghada. There are 19th century mail steamers, modern cargo ships and historic spice traders lying on the bottom of this stretch of sea, all waiting to be explored
As more and more divers discover the diving areas of northern Egypt, attention has begun to turn to the dive sites of southern Egypt. South Egypt offers warm, clear waters and lush coral gardens without a hint of pollution, along hundreds of kilometres of almost uninhabited coastline. South Egypt is the area along the Red Sea coast from just south of Hurghada all the way to the southern border with Sudan.
Diving there is fantastic. Stick a pin in the map almost anywhere on the coast, and you would most likely find prime dive site of pristine beauty. This is an area of elaborate coral gardens, maze-like labyrinths of caves and canyons, drop-offs and gentle slopes, shallow undersea playgrounds and submarine valleys.
Most of the reef fish species abound in huge numbers, and display little of the timidity which has become common further north. Huge schools of snapper, surgeonfish, barracuda, fusilier and jacks are extremely common, while solitary reef fishes are present in numbers usually reserved for schooling species in other parts of the Red Sea. Grouper reach incredible sizes, big moray eels fill nooks and crannies in the reef, colourful angelfish of many species abound, and looming giants such as Napoleon Wrasse and huge bump head parrotfish patrol the waters along the reef's edge. The sandy bottoms along the coast support a variety of rays, as well as oddities such as guitar sharks and crocodile fish. Other sharks, including reef white tips, grey reefs, hammerheads and even the majestic whale shark, have all been seen in these waters.
The area's other marine residents are sea turtles, squid, cuttlefish and octopus. This is also one of the few places in the world where wild dolphins have been known to play with divers in the water. There are even areas where that most elusive of marine mammals, the Dugong, have been seen by divers.
The climate
Tempered by sea breezes from the gulfs of Suez and Aqaba, temperatures are mild in winter and blazing hot in summer, often reaching 40 degrees (104 F) or more. Rainfall is minimal and limited to the winter months. Beware of the danger of fierce sunlight and cover up, using a good sunscreen.
Water temperatures range from the upper twenties (80s F) in the summer to winter lows as cold as 19 to 20 degrees (66-68 F). You may be comfortable enough in just a swim skin in summer, particularly if you normally dive in cold water. Conversely, in the wintertime, some locals use dry suits! A 3mm (0.12in) or even a 5mm (0.20) wetsuit would not be out of order for most of the year.
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