Ras EL Torfa - Abu Siyal

The dive

Abu Siyal is one of four dives Emperor Divers groups under the Ras El Torfa headland south of Port Ghalib, alongside Etnin Galawa, Kora Kebir and Shaab Salata. Other centres spell it Abu Sail or Abu Saile and list it in the same place in the coast order, between Marsa Shouna Kebir to the north and Shoni Bay 1.4 km to the south. It is a bay with a fringing reef down each side, and which side you are on is the difference: the north is a shallow coral garden, the south is a wall. Emperor's boats moor in a natural lagoon at the most northern part of the bay, where a sand strip starting at 5 m separates the main reef from a line of coral beds forming the drop-off. Centres based further south drive to it instead and enter from the beach in booties, with roughly 80 m to swim in full kit before descending.

The feature the site is known for is the hole. SeaHorse Diving Club describes the entry as a small hole in the back reef with about three minutes spent inside a small cave; Blue Submarine describes the same hole as the mouth of a tunnel, or a canyon, that you drop into and follow out to open water. Outside on the south side SeaHorse puts a mushroom-shaped pinnacle running from 20 m down to 60 m, well past the 40 m that both PADI and SeaHorse give as the site maximum. On the way back in, Emperor's guides look at 9 m for a pinnacle carrying an undamaged table coral with a lemon coral goby living in it.

The fish are ordinary Red Sea reef fauna rather than the reason to come. Emperor names pufferfish and goatfish on the sand patch and anthias over the drop-off, with turtles further south; our own occurrence records for the pin add masked, starry and stripebelly pufferfish, scalefin anthias, Red Sea bannerfish, blue-spotted ribbontail rays, crocodilefish, peacock cod, coral hind, giant moray, blue, Picasso and orange-lined triggerfish, and common lionfish. Two operators report whitetip reef sharks here, and a 2010 dive report from the site describes sleeping whitetip pups and a small barracuda school inside the bay with tuna outside. That report is also the only visibility measurement we found: about 10 m inside the bay and about 15 m outside, on one day in August.

• A hole in the reef top that opens into a short tunnel out to the open sea
• Shallow coral garden on the north side, coral-encrusted wall on the south
• Mushroom-shaped pinnacle off the south wall from 20 m down past recreational depth
• A 9 m pinnacle with an intact table coral and a resident lemon coral goby
• Whitetip reef sharks reported by two operators, including sleeping pups inside the bay

Conditions

A sheltered bay dive with little or no current. Emperor's boats moor inside the northern lagoon, which is calm enough to kit up in. Visibility is better outside the bay than inside it: about 15 m outside against about 10 m in, on the one day anyone published numbers for. The north side is worked shallow over coral garden and sand, the south side along a wall.

On current: Both accounts of current here are low: SeaHorse Diving Club rates the site 'low' and the one published dive report from the site found none at all. Depth is where the sources split. PADI and SeaHorse both cap the site at 40 m, but the mushroom pinnacle on the outside of the south wall is described as running from 20 m to 60 m, and Blue Submarine quotes 60 m as the maximum; we record 5 to 40 m, from Emperor's sand strip at 5 m to the published recreational limit, and treat the pinnacle base as beyond the dive. Difficulty splits the same way: SeaHorse calls it easy to medium and open to all divers, Blue Submarine rates it 4 out of 5. We take the more conservative reading, because the dive includes a roofed passage. Visibility rests on a single measurement, about 10 m inside the bay and 15 m outside on 9 August 2010; Emperor says only that good visibility is a safe bet at Ras El Torfa. We record the lower of the two figures.