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1 Week Diving the Red Sea, Marsa Alam
Saturday, February 15th – Friday, February 21st, 2025
World Tour Days 105 – 110
We left Luxor in the late morning to start our journey to Marsa Alam. It took around 6 hours of driving with one rest stop. During the rest stop the man who worked at the little store showed us his two baby camels, about 1 year old each. They were cute and fluffy. Along the drive we also saw large herds of camels, one even with a small baby, much smaller than the ones we saw at the rest stop. Once we arrived to our dive village we spent the afternoon exploring the resort and planning our week. Sunset by the ocean was spectacular. This was our first time staying at a dive resort. We had our own chalet with an ocean view, and the meals and drinks were included. It was a nice treat.
We each had our own wooden locker right by the ocean for easy access to the house reef. There was also an area to hangup our wet suits and BCDs. We could dive the house reef very easily from the shore or Zodiac style boats that ran all day. The entire property was incredible and clean. It included a restaurant, a cafeteria, a waffle/ice cream shop, a dive shop, and the dive locker area. Some people were in tents right on the beach or in chalets. The sunrises over the ocean during breakfast never got old. Our walks to dinner were always in the dark but the path was lit up with many lanterns so it was quite cozy. In total we did 21 dives over the 6 days, and spent the little remaining time out of the water enjoying the amenities. The weather was super windy the days leading up to our stay and after, but was perfect and sunny during our week.
House Reef Dives
Our first dive day we got our equipment for the week and assigned lockers. The first dive was an orientation dive of the house reef, which is just at the beach right infront of the dive lockers. There is the North House Reef to the left, and the South House Reef to the right. The first orientation dive was the North House Reef, shore entry and exit. Our second dive of the day was our last orientation dive, to the South House Reef. This was a Zodiac entry, and Zodiac exit done as a drift dive. The third and final dive of the first day was the North House Reef, shore entry and exit. There were 6 combinations we could do for the house reef with various combinations of water entry, water exit, and north or south. Nick and I did each combination at least once.
All three dives the first day were great, the house reef is amazing with lots of colors, varieties of fish, and many bluespotted ribbontail rays. These are beige with bright neon blue spots all over them. Nick also spotted many eels. The visibility was like a glass of water on the house reef the first 2 days, then was slightly worse the last 4 days, but still amazing compared to other destinations we have dived. In total we enjoyed 13 house reef dives during our 6 day stay. Sea turtles were a common sighting, much to my delight.
Every house reef dive was good in different ways. Some were nice to practice buoyancy, had amazing visibility, spectacular lighting, interesting or rare animal sightings, and more. A special house reef moment was where an amazing school of blue fish with black spots on the tails were everywhere along the reef wall, and looked gorgeous and shimmery with the light beams reflecting off of them. It was a dreamy dive. There were so many small fish, it was like being inside the most beautiful aquarium we’ve ever seen.
Some rare sightings for us on the house reef included a baby torpedo ray bumping into corals in the current, scorpion fish, black tip reef shark, guitar fish, whitespotted moray eel, tuna hunting, and a shrimp. The shrimp was in a hole on the sandy bottom building his little house with debris of coral from around the entrance. A favorite sea turtle moment was when one who swam along eating from the corals with a large school of fish in the background and light beams shining from the surface.
Speed Boat Dives
The house reef dives were all included in our stay, but we could also sign up for additional dives outside of the house reef. Some were by mini bus followed by a shore entry or a boat entry, some were nearby via speedboat, and others were farther away via speedboat. All we had to do was sign up for dives we were interested in the day before and confirm by 5pm if there was enough people for it to run the next day. Nick and I ended up doing 8 dives in addition to the house reef.
Long Canyon was the first boat dive we did which we got to via a 20 minute speedboat. This dive included swimming along a few reefs, past a small wreck, and through the canyon. The canyon was a chamber of tunnels with many passageways, some holes in the top for light beams to shine through, and windows on the sides. We swam through this as a group, following the guide as there are many passages that lead to dead ends. The highlight was a rare red sea anemone with two clown fish swimming in and out of it.
Dolphin House, otherwise known as Shaab Samadai, is a marine park area where we did two dives. We arrived there via 30 minutes of minibus followed by 20 minutes by speed boat. They have zones that are marked off for only dolphins so that they are not disturbed, areas for only snorkeling, and areas for scuba divers. The dive shop obtained special permits for us to enter here and the money goes towards conservation. Unfortunately there were no dolphins on the day we went. The dives themselves were incredible, though, with swim through canyons, octopus, clown fish, an eel field, and more. When we were getting dressed after the speed boat Nick went to the bathroom just in his swim trunks. On his way back a local construction worker chatted with him briefly and asked to take a photo (a not unusual occurrence for us in Africa). The funny part though was that he took his shirt off since Nick was also topless in order to take the selfie. It was one of Nicks favorite moments from the dive stay, that’s for sure.
Marsa Abu Dabab was a site with reef on either side of a large seagrass bed area. We got there via 20 minutes on the speedboat. The highlights that are possible to see there are sea horses, dugongs, and sea turtles. During our two dives there we only saw sea turtles, but they were massive. The bottom was sandy and the sand was in mounds making it look other worldly.
Elphinstone Reef was the last site we did in addition to the house reef dives. It is THE dive to do in the area so we were fortunate it was only a 20 minute speed boat ride away. The dive shop only allows people who are advanced open water certified with 50 dives to do this site. Luckily for us (since we were just under 50 dives) we could pay for a private guide to do it. The boat ride there was crazy with waves that made us be airborne several times. Nick and I also got soaked. The dive site is a massive reef seemingly in the middle of nowhere that is both long and tall. It has various plateaus with different depths, reef on all sides and on top, and deep areas allowing for many different dives. In certain seasons there are many shark species there. The reef itself is amazing with soft corals and lots of fish.
One of the best moments during our return boat ride from Elphinstone Reef the second time was spotting sunfish, or Mola Mola. Our dive guide had never seen them before after 17 years of diving in the Red Sea, so he was excited to say the least. We all put our masks on and had our upper bodies in the water submerged to watch. The boat could not stop due to the waves in the open ocean and since the sunfish were swimming fairly quickly. There were 4 of them together and they were massive. It was magical getting to watch them for a long time move in their strange way through the ocean. Word quickly spread back at the dive stay and other divers were pretty jealous. I had to share the videos with several people including their marketing. Overall we felt just as lucky during our ocean safari as we did during our land safaris in Africa.
