Marsa Abu Dabab

The dive

Marsa Abu Dabab is a shore-accessible bay 34 km north of Marsa Alam town, about 35 km south of the airport, between the Malikia and Hilton Marsa Alam Nubian resorts. It is one site made of three parts: a southern house reef, a northern house reef, and the large seagrass meadow that links them across the middle of the bay at 2-4 m. The seagrass is the point. It is the feeding ground for the green turtles the bay is famous for and for the dugong it is famous for and rarely delivers.

The bay is a gently sloping sand basin with low current, rated beginner-level, and worked by snorkellers, discover-scuba students and certified divers at the same time. Coral blocks in the garden top out 2-3 m below the surface and drop to about 10 m on the south side and 15 m on the north, with small caves in the blocks. Published maximum depths for the site disagree - 24 m in one operator's description, 40 m in another - and we record the conservative 24 m. Water is reported around 29 C in summer. Beach entry is ticketed at EUR 20 per person as of 2025, including a lounger and an umbrella.

Be realistic about the wildlife. A 2012 study of this bay found green turtles sighted daily in peak season, with 300 sightings in November alone, while dugong was the least frequently seen species: two sightings in September, two in October, one in November. The same work recorded about 25 people crowding a single dugong on one of those days, which is why the code of conduct exists and why Red Sea Protectorate rangers are stationed here. Operators also report small guitar sharks, eagle rays, and macro subjects including ghost pipefish and seahorses.

We hold no OBIS occurrence records at this exact position, so nothing in this description is drawn from the occurrence data; the fauna reported here comes from dive-centre pages and the 2012 study. Our Abu Dabab South record, 200 m away in the same bay, does carry a dense occurrence list, which is an artefact of where the harvest box was centred rather than a difference between the two places.

One more thing worth saying plainly, because our own catalogue makes it confusing. Marsa Abu Dabab appears in our data three times: as 'Marsa Abu Dabab' (SSI record 101697, whose own alias list includes 'Abu Dabbab bay' and 'coral garden'), as 'Abu Dabab Garden' (record 135209, aliased 'Dabbab house reef') and as 'Abu Dabab South' (record 387101). The three positions lie within about 400 m of each other, all inside the same marsa, and Scuba World Divers describes the site as one bay made of a southern house reef, a northern house reef and the seagrass meadow between them. These are not three dive sites. They are three catalogue entries for parts of one bay, and we have kept the facts identical across them rather than invent differences. Separately, none of them is one of the numbered offshore reefs Abu Dabbab I to VII, which dive centres reach by speedboat and where the dugong and turtles are not to be expected.

• Shore entry into a seagrass bay - south reef, north reef and the meadow between
• Green turtles daily in peak season; dugong genuinely rare
• Ticketed beach access, EUR 20 per person as of 2025
• Coral blocks from 2-3 m down to 10 m south and 15 m north, with small caves
• Snorkellers, intro divers and certified divers share the same water

Conditions

A gently sloping sandy bay, calm and shallow, with low current. Seagrass across the middle at 2-4 m; coral blocks from 2-3 m below the surface down to about 10 m on the south side and 15 m on the north. No source publishes a typical visibility figure. Water is around 29 C in summer. The bay is crowded and emptiest at the start of the day.

On current: Operators agree the bay is gently sloping with low current and describe it as calm and shallow. Maximum depth is disputed: Scuba World Divers gives 24 m for the site, SeaHorse Diving Club quotes 40 m, and the coral garden inside the bay is described as topping out 2-3 m below the surface and dropping to 10 m on the south side and 15 m on the north. We record the conservative 24 m. No source publishes a typical visibility figure, so none is recorded. Water is reported around 29 C in summer.