Elphinstone South

The dive

This is the southern end of Elphinstone Reef, the same submerged ridge as our Elphinstone North record - about 300 m long and 20-40 m wide, roughly 10 km off the Marsa Alam coast, with walls dropping on both sides into open water past 100 m. Where the northern plateau is a fin-shaped shelf at about 18-40 m, the southern plateau is deeper: a soft-coral garden at around 41 m, good for nudibranchs, with the reef falling away beyond it.

The dive is a drift. The ridge lies at an angle to the prevailing flow, so current runs almost permanently, typically north to south at two knots or more, variable and able to shift or reverse mid-dive. The standard profile here is down the west side and back along the east, with the current deciding how hard that is. Boats drop divers up-current and pick them up in blue water, which makes a delayed SMB non-negotiable. Access is by day boat or zodiac from the Marsa Alam coast - about 17 minutes from Marsa Abu Dabab when the sea allows - or by liveaboard from Port Ghalib in around two hours. Operators ask for Advanced Open Water plus around 50 logged dives with deep, drift and rough-water experience.

The Sarcophagus arch belongs to this end of the reef. It is a tunnel roughly 10 m high connecting the western and eastern walls near the southern tip, published at 52-65 m and spanning about 50-70 m, typically entered around 55-60 m. That is outside recreational limits in any agency's table, and it is not a swim-through you drop into because you are already deep. Divers have died attempting it. The 'sarcophagus' itself is a large square block of rock: the pharaoh's-tomb story is narcosis folklore that trimix divers have long since disproved.

The reef is the coast's main pelagic station. Hammerheads and oceanic whitetips patrol here, large Napoleon wrasse often shadow a dive, and the walls carry gorgonians below the soft coral. We hold no OBIS occurrence records at this position, so nothing in this description is drawn from occurrence data - the pelagic reporting comes from dive guides and operators.

• Southern plateau: a soft-coral garden at around 41 m, deeper than the northern shelf
• The Sarcophagus arch - a ~10 m tunnel through the reef at 52-70 m, beyond recreational limits
• Near-permanent north-to-south drift at two knots or more, capable of reversing
• Hammerheads and oceanic whitetips; large Napoleon wrasse on the shelf
• Same reef as our Elphinstone North record - this is the other end of it

Conditions

Almost always a drift. The ridge sits at an angle to the prevailing flow, so current runs over both plateaus more or less permanently, typically north to south at two knots or more, variable and capable of shifting mid-dive, with down-currents reported along both walls. The usual profile is down the west side and back along the east. Visibility is quoted at 20-35 m by one guide and averaging 20 m by another; we record the lower figure. Water runs about 22 C in March and 29 C in August, and surface conditions are open-ocean and often rough.

On current: Current is near-permanent over both plateaus, typically north to south at two knots or more, variable and capable of shifting mid-dive, with down-currents reported along the east and west walls. The recreational profile on the southern plateau is quoted at around 41 m; the arch below it at 52-70 m is not a recreational depth and is excluded from the recorded range. Visibility is quoted at 20-35 m by one guide and averaging 20 m by another; we record the lower figure. Water runs about 22 C in March and 29 C in August.

Best months: Oct, Nov, Dec