Naama Bay - Kanabesh

The dive

This pin is an entry point, not a dive site of its own. It sits on the Naama Bay seafront under the Kanabesh hotel frontage, 50 m from our Red Sea College house-reef pin, 150 m from the Jolie Ville one and 400 m from our Naama Bay entry. No dive centre, guide or trip report we could find describes a 'Kanabesh' dive as distinct from Naama Bay itself, and the scubago record that supplied this pin carries no description at all. What you dive from here is the bay.

The bay dive is worth knowing on its own terms. Camel Dive Club, whose centre is a few minutes' walk along the same beach, describes a walk-in entry to a shallow sandy bay that gains depth the further out you swim, coral pinnacles starting at around 5 m, and seagrass at 12 to 18 m running deeper into the bay towards more pinnacles. The Red Sea Diving College, whose own beach entry is next to this pin, gives 30 m as the maximum, calls the bay a shallow incline with large soft sand patches, seagrass fields, pinnacles and a coral garden, and records it as a shore dive only: not a boat dive, not a drift, and no habitual strong current.

That combination is why every centre on the bay teaches here. The College runs everything from PADI Bubblemakers to instructor training on it. Camel runs its night dives on it and marks a buoyed confined area for kitting up, descending and surfacing, which tells you what the surface is like on a busy beach. Subex, at the Maritim Jolie Ville further along the bay, throws in night and early-morning house-reef dives at no extra charge.

The life is small-stuff rather than headline animals: Camel lists flatfish, juvenile goatfish and mullet feeding in the sand, host anemones and clownfish, moray eels, anthias, parrotfish and butterflyfish, with citron gobies and blue chromis deeper; the College adds rays, turtles and glassfish on the pinnacles. The OBIS records inside 1.5 km of the pin match that: Red Sea surgeonfish, several parrotfishes, ringed and purple tangs, devil firefish, blue-spotted ribbontail ray, twoband anemonefish, giant clams and the occasional humphead wrasse.

• Walk-in entry to a shallow sand bay that deepens as you swim out
• Coral pinnacles starting around 5 m, more of them past the seagrass at 12-18 m
• Seagrass fields with grazing rays and turtles
• The training reef for every centre on the bay, from Bubblemaker to instructor courses
• Night diving run from the same beach

Conditions

A sheltered bay you walk into. Sand and seagrass with coral pinnacles scattered through it, shelving gradually from the beach to a maximum of about 30 m, and no habitual strong current. No source publishes a visibility or temperature figure for this entry specifically, so there are no numbers here we would stand behind.

On current: The Red Sea Diving College records Naama Bay as having no habitual strong current, and lists it as a shore dive that is neither a boat dive nor a drift. Camel Dive Club's description is consistent: you walk in and swim out, gaining depth as you go, rather than being carried. Neither publishes a figure. The surface, not the water column, is the thing to manage here — Camel keeps a buoyed confined area for kitting up and surfacing on what is a busy public beach.

Dives & underwater footage