Abu Dabab IV

The overall range is about 3 to 25 m, and the part of it worth your bottom time is the coral garden between roughly 12 and 22 m, scattered with pinnacles and coral tables. That keeps a normal dive comfortably inside recreational limits.

Yes. The operating dive centre rates it easy to medium with low to medium current and opens it to all certification levels. There is no overhead environment and no deep component you are obliged to take.

Because it is the least visited of the numbered group, and dive centres describe its coral cover as richer than the neighbouring reefs and the visibility as generally better. Low traffic is the whole argument for it.

Speedboat day trip from the Marsa Alam coast; there is no shore access. Boats in the Egyptian Red Sea moor on HEPCA's buoy system rather than anchoring on the reef, a network of over a thousand buoys installed to keep hulls and chains off the coral.

It is not published as a snorkelling site. The reef does rise to around 3 m, so the tops are within reach from the surface, but the dive itself is a coral garden at 12-22 m that you will not see from above, and access is by dive boat only.

The occurrence record is the standard northern Red Sea assemblage, essentially the same list as the adjacent reefs: sohal surgeonfish, bluespotted ribbontail ray, sailfin tang, masked butterflyfish, common lionfish, coral hind, royal angelfish, giant moray and titan triggerfish. Dive-centre accounts add crocodilefish, turtles, tuna and barracuda.

No. The dugongs associated with the Abu Dabbab name graze the seagrass in Marsa Abu Dabab bay, a separate ticketed shore site, not at the numbered offshore reefs. Turtles, on the other hand, are reported across the group.