Jackson Reef

The dive

Jackson is the northernmost of the four reefs in the Straits of Tiran, the narrow channel between the Sinai and the Saudi coast where the Gulf of Aqaba meets the Red Sea. The reef is roughly triangular, with its northern point marked by the wreck of the Lara. Boats run out from Sharm el Sheikh, about 14 km away, and there is a mooring; the strait itself is shared water and the islands at its mouth are Saudi territory, so the diving is on the reefs and nowhere else.

The Lara was a 137 m refrigerated cargo ship, built in Germany in 1956 as the Nopal Trader, that ran hard aground on the northern side of the reef while heading south through the strait. The Red Sea Wreck Project records the grounding as November 1982; several dive-centre pages give 4 December 1981, so the date is not settled. Salvage in the mid-1990s cut away much of the hull and dropped it into deep water, and what remains on the reef is a skeleton. Underwater she is a technical dive rather than a recreational one: the debris field starts around 40 m, the mast lies at 48 m, and the stern with its rudder and seven-bladed propeller is deeper again.

The recreational dive is the reef. A west plateau carries a coral garden, an east plateau holds the remains of an old lighthouse, and the south side has sandy splits in the shallows before the wall drops away past 40 m onto a seabed with a garden eel colony. Depths run from the surface to 50 m and beyond; a normal dive works between about 5 and 30 m and treats everything below that as a decision, not a default. Current is the defining condition. Seawolf describes it running from the south in the morning and around midday and swinging to the north in the afternoon, and rates the site's difficulty as high because of it; Dive The World calls the strait intermediate to advanced. Jackson is also one of the first Tiran sites that wind closes.

Sharks are why people come. Aquarius Red Sea calls Jackson the most accessible hammerhead site in the region, with aggregations of five to thirty scalloped hammerheads forming in summer, a July-to-October window peaking in August and September, and grey reef sharks on the south plateau year-round. The hammerhead dive is a blue-water hang at 25 to 35 m facing the wall and needs Advanced certification. Nothing about it is guaranteed. On the reef itself expect sea goldies in clouds, coral hind, sling-jaw wrasse, bannerfish and schooling pennantfish, fusiliers, bluespotted ribbontail rays and lionfish, with barracuda, trevally, tuna, eagle rays, Napoleon wrasse and turtles reported from the drop-offs. Jackson has been designated an Important Shark and Ray Area on the strength of multi-year citizen-science records.

• The stripped hull of the Lara on the northern point, visible from the boat since 1982
• Scalloped hammerhead aggregations of five to thirty in summer, the strait's most reliable
• Grey reef sharks on the south plateau year-round
• A garden eel colony on the sand below the south wall
• Coral garden on the west plateau and old lighthouse remains on the east

Conditions

Seawolf gives Jackson 30-40 m visibility depending on the season and water at 24-28 C; Dive The World gives the strait 20-25 m visibility and 22 C in February to 28 C in August. There is a mooring, but current is present most days and reverses between morning and afternoon. The site is exposed, so surface conditions decide whether the boat goes at all.

On current: Current is the reason this reef is rated the way it is. Seawolf reports it setting from the south in the morning and around midday and reversing to the north in the afternoon, and calls the site's difficulty high because of it; Sharm Scuba Service describes the current as quite variable; Dive The World rates the strait intermediate to advanced. The northern point, which is where the hammerheads are, is the most exposed corner of the reef. There is a mooring, but the profile you get depends on which way the water is going when you arrive, and Jackson is among the first Tiran sites the wind closes. Visibility is given as 30-40 m by Seawolf and 20-25 m by Dive The World; 20 m is the conservative figure.

Best months: Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov

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