The dive
Makadi Bay's north shore is fronted by a single fringing reef roughly a mile long: a reef flat that runs more than 40 m out from the beach in places, then drops away to a sandy bottom with dozens of small patch reefs scattered across it. Four resort dive centres sit along that one reef and each of them calls its own stretch the house reef, which is why our catalogue carries several near-identical pins within a few hundred metres of this one. This entry, Old House Reef, is the stretch on the Grand Makadi frontage, and the only description of it we could find has it as a one-way dive rather than a there-and-back shore route: a shallow sandy bottom rising into a coral garden at around 20 m, with turtles that sleep on it during the day, drifted north until it finishes at Gota Abu Makadi.
That description comes from a dive-spot directory — the same one this pin was imported from — and we could not corroborate it on any dive centre's own pages, so treat the 20 m and the drift as unconfirmed. What is documented, by the centres themselves, is the ground either side of it. Off the Madinat Makadi jetty 160 m south, the operator's own page has you entering at 3 to 5 m, crossing seagrass and sand between 5 and 18 m past a set of named artificial reefs, and finding the deep coral blocks at 18 to 30 m; a buoy line separates divers from boat traffic in the shallows. At the Cleopatra Luxury Resort end, the centre puts the main body of the reef at 14 to 18 m. A UK operator selling the bay describes coral blocks and the remains of an old wreck in about 5 m, the main reef around 15 m, and eagle rays, whiptail rays, turtles and the occasional bowmouth guitarfish between 15 and 30 m.
The occurrence records around this pin are the densest in this part of the coast, which fits a reef that is dived every day from a beach: sailfin tang, rusty and daisy parrotfish, Rüppell's wrasse, Red Sea surgeonfish, brown unicornfish and threadfin butterflyfish lead the list, with blue-spotted ribbontail rays on the sand, broomtail wrasse, masked puffers, twoband anemonefish, royal angelfish, giant morays and small giant clams behind them. It is an ordinary, healthy-looking Red Sea fringing reef with a lot of fish on it, not a feature dive — and the honest thing to say about this particular pin is that its neighbours are better documented than it is.
- Part of a single fringing reef about a mile long that runs the whole north shore of Makadi Bay
- Described as a one-way drift on the Grand Makadi frontage, finishing at the pinnacles of Gota Abu Makadi
- Turtles reported sleeping on the reef during the day
- A dense, ordinary Red Sea reef-fish assemblage: sailfin tang, parrotfish, surgeonfish, butterflyfish, anemonefish and giant morays
- Blue-spotted ribbontail rays on the sand at the foot of the reef
Please note before you go
- This is a busy resort bay: the operator on the adjacent stretch runs a buoy line specifically to keep divers clear of boat traffic in the shallows, and one centre alone handles well over a hundred divers a day
- Scorpionfish and stonefish are both named on the neighbouring stretch of this reef; the sandy bottom here is not a place to kneel or steady yourself by hand
- Blue-spotted ribbontail rays are among the most-recorded animals along this reef and carry a venomous tail spine
- The one description of this route has it finishing somewhere other than where it starts, so it is not a dive to improvise without a guide or a boat pickup
SeaLog
