Fayrouz House Reef South

The dive

Fayrouz House Reef South is not a separate reef. It is the southern half of a single house reef in front of the Three Corners Fayrouz Plaza Beach Resort, about 3 km south of Port Ghalib and roughly 15 km from Marsa Alam airport. The catalogue carries two pins on it, north and south, 470 m apart, and they sit either side of the resort jetty, which the hotel gives as 368 m long. Divers do log the two ends separately on the reef's own logbooks, but the entry, the operator and the reef structure are the same for both; this page covers the leg you turn south along after reaching the jetty head, running toward the Coral Garden pin half a kilometre further down the coast.

The reef has two clearly different faces and which one you dive is a weather decision, not a preference. Inside is a sheltered lagoon, a natural depression in the reef flat around 50 m across and roughly 0.6 to 6 m deep, with almost no wave or current effect; it is where introductory dives and courses go and it stays workable in wind. Outside the reef crest is an almost vertical wall dropping into open water, which is closed off when it blows because it faces the sea directly. Snorkelling Report records a slight north-south set along that wall and advises against working far along it from the pontoon, which is the main thing to plan for on the southern leg since the reef edge simply keeps running in that direction with no natural turn-around.

What is written about this reef is written about the reef as a whole, and nothing published singles out the southern end for a feature the north does not also have. Extra Divers, the centre on the resort beach, describes a healthy coral reef with octopus, moray eels and rays, barracuda and turtles seen regularly, and manta rays and whitetip reef sharks as occasional visitors. The OBIS record around this pin matches that ordinary shallow-reef picture: blue-spotted ribbontail rays on the sand, live sharksuckers, devil firefish, giant moray, broomtail and sling-jaw wrasse, and a full spread of parrotfish, triggerfish and butterflyfish. Turtles are associated in the sources with the seagrass in the second lagoon at the northern end rather than with this side.

• Vertical outer wall dropping straight off the reef crest
• Sheltered lagoon at roughly 0.6 to 6 m for training and easy dives
• 368 m jetty with stairs putting you straight on the reef edge
• Diveable in almost any weather by choosing the inside or the outside

Conditions

Sheltered entry and exit off the jetty in almost any weather, with the choice between a near-still lagoon and an exposed vertical wall. Current is slight, running north-south along the outer face. On windy days the wall is closed and only the lagoon is used.

On current: Both the shore-diving guide and the reef's directory entry describe the current here as slight to limited rather than a factor. Snorkelling Report records a dominant north-south set on the outer wall and warns snorkellers not to work far along the wall from the pontoon, which matters more on the southern leg because the reef edge just keeps running south. Inside the lagoon there is effectively no current and very little wave action, which is why the centre puts training there.