Abu Soma Garden

The dive

Abu Soma Garden is the coral garden that runs south from the Ras Abu Soma headland, part of the same reef system as Ras Abu Soma itself and the Breakers house reef a few hundred metres away. It is the gentle member of the group: a long reef that descends gradually from the shallows, with sandy patches at depth between the coral.

PADI publishes a 1 to 30 m range for it and boat entry, with Open Water as the minimum certification. In practice most of the dive is spent much shallower than that maximum, working the coral along the slope, and drift diving is on the list of what the site suits when the northerly current is running.

Our OBIS records for this position are ordinary northern Red Sea reef fauna and read almost identically to Ras Abu Soma and Gamul Kebir nearby: two-band anemonefish, bluespotted ribbontail ray, giant moray, common lionfish, bullethead parrotfish, sailfin tang, scalefin anthias, giant clam, masked butterflyfish and Red Sea bannerfish. Dive-centre accounts add eagle rays, barracuda and crocodilefish on the sand.

• A long reef sloping gradually from the shallows to sand
• Crocodilefish on the sandy patches at depth
• Drift dive when the northerly current runs
• Part of the same reef system as Ras Abu Soma and the Breakers house reef

Conditions

A long reef descending gradually from about 1 m to a maximum around 30 m, with sand between the coral at the deep end. Current usually slight, setting from the north across the headland, occasionally enough for a one-way drift. No published visibility figure, so none is recorded.

On current: No source publishes a current figure for the garden specifically. The headland it belongs to has a main current set from the north that is usually slight and sometimes enough for a gentle drift, and PADI lists drift diving among the site's suitable specialties. No published visibility figure, so none is recorded.

Dives & underwater footage