Diving in Dahab

“Diving is the closest you can get to zero gravity without leaving the Earth's atmosphere. Being able to float mid water, neutrally buoyant, is amazing enough but mix in the blue sea, colourful fish and the vibrant and diverse corals and you’re immersed in the most amazing new world that you’ll want to visit again and again.” – Lynne Helal-Gillis, manager of Dive Urge, a Responsible Travel tour partner since 2003.

If you’re hoping to get your water wings or you’re already an experienced diver, the Bedouin fishing village of Dahab, on the Sinai Peninsula’s southeast coast, has unlimited shore dives as well as an authentic ambience a world away from the ‘charms of Sharm’. Diving vacations in Dahab don’t just offer the chance to explore below the surface, they invite you to live in a vibrant village with families, kids, goats, camels and a wide range of international travelers who have also decided to make the village their home.

“We saw all types of fish from stingrays,eels, clownfish and lionfish along with larger shoals of silver and glass fish, which swarm around you in large numbers. Gopros were made available for us so that we could have all our underwater adventures photographed.” – Maggie Carruthers, from our traveler reviews

Dahab is reckoned to have some of the healthiest, most vibrant and most resilient coral reefs in the Middle East. Which means it’s incredibly important to keep them so, with climate change, pollution and inconsiderate dive operators all posing threats. Traveling with a responsible operator ensures that not only are you kept safe and well-trained, but that protecting the reefs and their inhabitants is the absolute priority.

If you’re hoping to discover what lies beneath the beaches and learn a new skill to keep for life, then what are you waiting for? Dive right in.

Situated just five minutes from Dahab, the fantastical Eel Garden is named after a Medusa’s nest of sand eels that populate sandy slopes and swaying fields of sea grass. The underwater lunar landscapes leave folk speechless and the shallow nature of the dive (maximum depth 18 metres) help to make Eel Garden a photographer’s dream, with a shallow reef wall and pinnacles providing ideal light alongside an abundance of subject matter.

The high mountains, sand dunes, and raised fossil reefs of Ras Abu Galum National Park are virtually untouched and present an authentic insight into Bedouin culture. As you can only access this area via a camel trek or boat ride it’s incredibly remote and provides shallow, deep, wall and drift dives amongst a profusion of brightly coloured fish and corals.