Abu Dabab Garden

The dive

Abu Dabab Garden is the coral garden of Marsa Abu Dabab itself - the shore-accessible bay 34 km north of Marsa Alam town, between the Malikia and Hilton resorts - and not one of the numbered offshore Abu Dabbab reefs that dive centres reach by speedboat. The distinction matters: the dugongs and green turtles the name is famous for graze the seagrass of this bay, and are not to be expected out on Abu Dabbab I to VII.

The garden is a field of coral blocks whose tops sit 2 to 3 m below the surface, dropping to about 10 m on the southern side and 15 m on the northern, with a few small caves that hold light. Entry is from the beach in the south-eastern corner of the bay, which is why the site works for snorkellers, discover-scuba students and certified divers on the same trip. The seagrass meadows that draw the megafauna are shallow, at roughly 2 to 4 m, so much of what people come here for is visible from the surface.

Sightings are not symmetrical. Green turtles are routine - a 2012 study found them sighted daily in peak season - while dugongs are genuinely rare: the same work logged five sightings across three months, with about 25 people crowding a single animal on one of those days. That crowding is why the code of conduct exists and why Red Sea Protectorate rangers are stationed at the bay.

We hold no OBIS occurrence records at this exact position, so nothing here is drawn from the occurrence data; the fauna described is dive-centre and study reporting.

• Shore entry from the south-eastern corner of the bay
• Coral blocks topping out 2-3 m below the surface, down to 10-15 m
• Shallow seagrass at 2-4 m - green turtles daily in season, dugongs rare
• Small caves in the blocks that hold light
• Snorkellers and divers work the same water

Conditions

A sheltered bay. Coral blocks from 2-3 m below the surface down to about 10 m south and 15 m north, with shallow seagrass at 2-4 m across the middle. No published current or visibility figure, so neither is recorded. Trips typically run 08:00 to 14:00 and the bay is emptiest at the start of that.

On current: No source publishes a current figure for the bay; it is a sheltered marsa and is sold to snorkellers and discover-scuba students, which is context rather than a measurement. No published visibility figure either, so none is recorded. Water temperature at the neighbouring Abu Dabbab site is reported around 29 C in summer.

Dives & underwater footage