Islands

The dive

The Islands is a shore dive south of Dahab and one of the town's gentlest sites. Entry is over a wide reef platform, marked by a white sign on the shore, through a short tunnel or crack that opens onto the reef top or straight into the first sand pool. Because of the platform crossing it is best dived at high tide.

The dive itself is a maze. Three large pinnacles have grown together over time into a labyrinth of valleys, lagoons and coral heads that separates a series of sand pools from the fringing reef. You work through the pools - typically 5 to 10 m of sandy bottom surrounded by hard coral - and then into the coral maze proper for twenty to thirty minutes before swimming out around the islands. The average depth is 5 to 10 m; the maximum quoted is 18 to 20 m, and much of the labyrinth is shallower than 7 m.

This is a coral dive, not a big-animal dive, and it is one of the best hard-coral sites in Dahab for it. One of the lagoons holds thousands of juvenile barracuda with trevally and large snapper in attendance. Our occurrence records for the site are consistent with a shallow reef top - Klunzinger's wrasse, shrimp gobies, sulphur damsels, brown surgeonfish, giant clams, common lionfish, blackback butterflyfish, hairy stinger and net fire coral, forsteri hawkfish and masked pufferfish. Note the two Millepora fire corals in that list: this is a shallow site with a lot of contact opportunities, and buoyancy is what keeps you off them.

• Shallow coral labyrinth of valleys, lagoons and sand pools formed by three merged pinnacles
• Average depth 5-10 m, maximum around 18-20 m
• A lagoon holding thousands of juvenile barracuda, with trevally and snapper
• Shore entry over a wide reef platform, so best dived at high tide

Conditions

Shallow, calm and bright. In over the reef platform at high tide, through a short tunnel into the sand pools, then twenty to thirty minutes threading the coral maze at 5-10 m before working out around the islands. Centres report light current, usually helping you home at the end.

On current: Dive centres give an average depth of 5-10 m and a maximum of 18-20 m, with the labyrinth itself as shallow as around 7 m; one centre records the site range as 0-20 m. Current is described as light, typically helping divers along towards the end of the dive. The practical constraint is the tide: entry crosses a wide reef platform and the site is best dived at high water. We found no sourced visibility figure specific to this site, so it is left blank.