Bet Goha ED

The dive

Bet Goha, also written Beit Goha, sits on the open coast between Safaga and El Quseir, a few kilometres north of the old Hamrawein mining port. It is a shore site, not a boat one. The dive centres based around El Quseir drive north up the coast road by jeep or minibus in the morning, run two dives on this stretch, and are back at the centre by lunch. The "ED" in our catalogue name is an import artefact rather than part of the place name: it marks the site list of Extra Divers at the Movenpick in El Quseir, one of the operations that works this coast.

The dive itself begins with a canyon cut through the fringing reef. Wonderful Dive, the centre at Rohanou in El Quseir, describes the passage as lined with coral and fish with a group of barracuda usually holding inside it, and notes that because the floor is sand the water at the entrance is often stirred up and only clears once you are out the far side. Past the canyon the ground breaks into coral, and divers writing on Taucher.net describe it as a labyrinth of old, large coral heads, which is roughly what the Arabic name points at.

The honest headline is that almost nobody dives it. The same Taucher.net thread lists Bet Goha as seldom dived because it is sensitive to current and swell, and on this unsheltered piece of coast that rules it out often. That is also why so little is written about it. No operator page we could open publishes a depth profile, no SeaLog diver has logged it yet, and the OBIS record for this pin is empty, so we have left depth, visibility and species blank instead of filling them from a directory that would only be guessing.

• Canyon entry through the fringing reef, with a group of barracuda usually inside it
• A labyrinth of old, large coral heads once you clear the passage
• Rarely on anyone's schedule, so quiet on the days it does run
• Reached by jeep or minibus from El Quseir and paired with a second shore dive

Conditions

Unsheltered coast with no protection from the prevailing north wind, which is what decides whether the dive happens. Visibility at the entry is limited by sand lifted in the canyon and improves once you are outside it. No source we found publishes a typical visibility figure and no SeaLog diver has logged the site, so we have not set one.

On current: Everything divers say about Bet Goha comes back to the weather. A Taucher.net thread on Red Sea sites lists it as rarely dived specifically because it is sensitive to current and swell, and the centres decide on the morning rather than in advance. No source publishes a current strength for the site, so we have not set one. Separately, expect the sand in the entry canyon to be lifted and the visibility there to be poor until you are through it.

Marine life you can see at Bet Goha ED

Animals divers commonly encounter in these waters. This site has no occurrence record of its own yet, so this list comes from the sea it sits in rather than from observations at the pin.