Sharm El Naga

The dive

Sharm El Naga is a bay on the mainland coast between Hurghada and Safaga, about 40 km south of Hurghada, and it is one of the few Egyptian sites that is genuinely a shore dive rather than a boat site with a beach attached. The resort that owns the bay has run it as a shore-diving operation since 1985 and sells unlimited house-reef diving from sunrise to sunset. Extra Divers, which operates the centre, describes the entry plainly: a staircase from the jetty puts you straight on the reef, and a tank service carries cylinders down for you.

The profile is simple and unusually deep for a shore dive. The resort's own description has the sandy bottom sloping away from zero to more than 30 m, with drop-offs continuing to around 80 m. Extra Divers describes the same thing from the water as a reef that steps off steeply in several stages, so you choose your depth by how far out you swim rather than by finding a particular feature. That is what makes it work for a training site and for a diver who wants a long shallow potter in the same water.

What people report seeing here is small: crocodilefish, nudibranchs and other macro subjects, with turtles and rays over the sand and a whale shark occasionally. Extra Divers puts that down to the bay having had relatively low diving traffic in the past. Records from the reef around this pin also include leopard torpedo rays, giant moray, giant clams, sea goldies and the usual Red Sea surgeonfish, butterflyfish and anemonefish.

The bay is also a mainstream snorkelling day trip, and that shapes the day more than anything underwater. Operators run road transfers from Hurghada, El Gouna, Soma Bay and Makadi with hotel pickup around 08:30, an entrance fee to the bay, sun loungers, a pool, a beach restaurant and a buffet lunch, returning late afternoon. If you want the reef quiet, dive it early or stay on site; if you arrive on the bus you are sharing it with everyone else's bus. Shaab Saiman and Sharm El Rashed sit a few hundred metres up the coast and are run by zodiac from the same jetty, along with full-day trips to the Salem Express, Panorama Reef and Abu Kafan.

• Jetty staircase straight onto the reef, with a tank service carrying cylinders down
• A house reef that steps off in stages, so depth is chosen by how far out you swim
• Unlimited shore diving from sunrise to sunset through the resort's centre
• Macro ground: crocodilefish, nudibranchs and small reef life
• Turtles and rays over the sand, and an occasional whale shark
• Shaab Saiman and Sharm El Rashed a few hundred metres away by zodiac

Conditions

An enclosed bay with a sandy bottom that slopes away from the waterline and then steps off in stages, past 30 m and on to roughly 80 m at the drop-offs. Entry is down a jetty staircase. The dive centre runs guide lines and marker balloons on the house reef, has lifeguards on the beach and closes the water on its own weather warning system, so the variable that matters is wind rather than current. No operator source gives a visibility figure for the bay.

On current: Nothing we read describes a current problem here. The bay is enclosed and the dive centre runs it with guide lines and marker balloons, lifeguards on the beach and its own weather warning system, which suggests wind and sea state, not flow, are what closes the water. A dive directory that catalogues the site calls it calm water without currents and gives an average visibility of 20 m with a maximum of 30; we have not adopted either figure, because no operator page gives a visibility number for the bay and that directory's species list for this site is clearly aggregated rather than observed. The one thing to plan properly is depth: the resort's own description has the slope running past 30 m and the drop-offs going to about 80 m, so there is nothing underfoot to stop a descent.

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