Marsa Shouna

The dive

Marsa Shouna is a sheltered bay about 360 m across, roughly 10 km south of Port Ghalib, with a fringing reef down each side and a seagrass meadow filling the centre. What makes it unusual on this coast is that it is still undeveloped and open: you can walk in from the shore for nothing, without booking through a resort, which is rare between Port Ghalib and Marsa Alam. There is also no lifeguard, no shade and no facilities of any kind, so the freedom cuts both ways.

The bay is really three pieces of ground and they dive and snorkel differently. The northern reef gets the calmer water and most of the traffic; it has grown over largely with fire coral and carries schooling butterflyfish, anthias and bannerfish, big moray eels, and lionfish and scorpionfish that come out toward sunset. The southern reef sees fewer people, has the better coral of the two, and is usually worked as a drift, with emperor angelfish, grazing surgeonfish, schools of cornetfish and green turtles. The seagrass in the middle sits in 1 to 7 m and is where most people find what they came for: turtles resting on the sand or feeding in the grass, and guitar rays, which are fairly common here and breed in the bay at some times of year. Seahorses are reported but hard to find.

Operators split the wider area into several named dives rather than one — a sand plateau covered in table corals off the point, a cleaning-station site full of snapper and fusilier, the seagrass itself with whiptail rays and green turtles, and the sloping reefs of Shaab Sireer and Shaab Abu Khaled further out, where green turtles sleep at around 20 m. Day boats out of Port Ghalib take about 45 minutes to get here and typically pair the bay with Umm El Ros or Marsa Mubarak up the coast, which is where dugongs are more reliably found. Divers who have done both tend to report Marsa Shouna as the calmer, quieter half of that day rather than the dramatic one.

The occurrence records around this pin match a sheltered sand-and-seagrass bay: blue-spotted ribbontail ray by a wide margin, then batfish, spotbase burrfish, cornetfish, broomtail wrasse, daisy parrotfish, Picasso triggerfish, twoband anemonefish, bluecheek butterflyfish, Arabian monocle bream and butterfly goby, with giant moray, day octopus, porcupinefish, humpback turretfish and orangespotted trevally behind them.

• A seagrass meadow in 1 to 7 m in the middle of the bay, where green and hawksbill turtles feed and rest
• Guitar rays are fairly common here and breed in the bay seasonally
• Free, unbooked shore access to a still-undeveloped marsa, which is rare on this stretch of coast
• Two different reefs on one bay: fire-coral-dominated to the north, better coral and a drift to the south
• Green turtles sleeping at around 20 m on the sloping reefs outside the bay

Conditions

A sheltered bay with calm water, gentle current and generally good visibility. Water on this coast runs about 21 to 23 C in winter and up to roughly 30 C at the end of summer; visibility is at its best in spring and autumn. Visitor numbers are medium to high, and a free wild bay with no facilities means whatever the last group left behind is still there.

On current: The operator that dives it describes calm water, good visibility and gentle currents, and grades the site for beginners. The southern reef is normally worked as a drift, and the northern side is the one with the more settled sea, so which side you are put on is a wind decision. Depth needs care because the sources are measuring different things: a snorkelling guide gives about 10 m at the reef edges and 1 to 7 m over the seagrass, while the dive centre lists the site at 25 m. Both are true of different parts of the bay — the grass is shallow, the outer reef edges are not — so take the briefing's number rather than either of ours.

Best months: Mar, Apr, May, Sep, Oct, Nov