Naama Bay

The dive

Naama Bay is the large bay at the centre of the Sharm el Sheikh resort strip, about 7 km north of the old town, and it is a dive site because so many of the dive centres that line it use it as their house reef. Entry is on foot from the beach, a few minutes' walk from the centres, straight into shallow sand that shelves gently the further out you swim. Camel Dive Club marks a confined training area with a large buoy where kit checks, descents and ascents happen, and the same entry is used for night and early-morning dives.

The bottom is soft sand with coral blocks of different sizes standing on it. Camel Dive Club puts the first coral pinnacles at about 5 m; further out, between roughly 12 and 18 m, seagrass fields spread across the bay and lead to more pinnacles carrying large table corals. Red Sea Diving College runs the site to a 30 m maximum and calls it beginner ground, with no drift and no habitual strong current, which is exactly why it is used for everything from PADI Bubblemaker sessions to instructor development courses.

What you see reflects that: a sheltered, shallow, sandy bay full of juveniles and small things rather than big animals. Flatfish, baby goatfish and mullet over the sand, anemones with anemonefish, moray eels, anthias, parrotfish, butterflyfish, citron gobies and chromis around the blocks, glassfish inside them. Red Sea Diving College reports rays and turtles grazing on the seagrass in the deeper part of the bay. OBIS records for this pin are dominated by the usual Red Sea reef fish, with blue-spotted ribbontail ray, lionfish, Picasso triggerfish and several parrotfish among the most-recorded taxa.

It is a working bay rather than a scenic one. The beach is divided between hotel sections and two narrow public strips, boat and watersports traffic is constant, and the local rules Rough Guides sets out apply here as everywhere on this coast: look but do not touch, do not feed fish, do not collect anything, and be aware that shells taken from the beach can be confiscated on the way out of Egypt.

• Walk-in shore entry a few minutes from the dive centres, with a buoyed confined-training area
• Coral blocks standing on open sand from about 5 m
• Seagrass fields between roughly 12 and 18 m, with rays and turtles grazing them
• Table-coral pinnacles beyond the seagrass
• Night and early-morning dives from the same entry

Conditions

Calm, sheltered water in a crescent bay in the middle of the resort. You walk in over sand, swim out over a gentle slope, and pick up coral blocks from about 5 m and seagrass from about 12 m. Current is normally slight and there is no drift. Expect company: several dive centres run courses off this beach every day and it is one of the standard night dives on the local coast.

On current: Red Sea Diving College records no habitual strong current and does not run the site as a drift; the bay is sheltered and the water is normally calm, which is the whole basis of its use as a training site. Depth is a matter of how far you swim rather than where you drop: the sand shelves gradually from a walk-in entry, so a confined-water session happens in a few metres while the pinnacles at 12-18 m and the operator's 30 m limit are a long way out. The 5 m figure recorded here is where Camel Dive Club puts the first coral pinnacles, not the shallowest water in the bay.