Siyoul Kebir

The dive

Siyoul Kebir - Siyul Kebira, Siyul al Kebir, Big Siyul, and on one operator's page Ras Siyoul - is the reef that wraps the larger of the two Siyul islands in the Strait of Gubal. It is an island dive, not a wreck dive. The pin sits about 4.5 km southwest of Shaab Abu Nuhas, and none of the sources we read puts the Giannis D, the Carnatic, the Chrisoula K or the Kimon M anywhere near this reef; those four are on Abu Nuhas itself and belong to other pages. Day boats out of El Gouna and Hurghada reach it in something between an hour and a half and an hour and three quarters, and liveaboards working the Gubal wrecks stop here too.

The shape of the reef is described the same way by every operator: a sheer wall on the north side that gives way to a plateau running east and south, with shallow pinnacles rising on the southern side. Swiss Wellness Dive Club adds that the mooring sits on sand with two large coral blocks under it full of anthias, and Dive Trek describes those blocks running from roughly 9 m down to 20 m with a group of bannerfish on the plateau, the reef then sloping away to about 30 m and a further block at around 18 m carrying glassfish, large table corals and gorgonians. Seawolf Safari, which brings liveaboards here, describes sand valleys cutting into the reef with overhangs and crevices between them.

There are two ways to run it. The standard dive is a drift entered on the north side and taken along the wall, turning the eastern corner over the plateau, working gradually shallower and finishing on the southern pinnacles at safety-stop depth. When the current will not allow that, the same reef is dived out and back from the mooring behind the reef. The north side is the part that needs respect: Ilios Dive Club, Dive Trek and Swiss Wellness all use the same word for the current there, vicious, and Seawolf notes that the dives here mostly run with a fast current toward the northern tip. The moorings themselves are sheltered, but the crossing out over open water can be rough.

The fish list is ordinary reef material with a few reasons to look at the sand. Operators name moray eels, stonefish, scorpionfish, lionfish, clownfish, triggerfish, pufferfish, flutefish and octopus, with sweetlips and masked butterflyfish in the shallower water and Napoleon wrasse on the reef. Both Dive Trek and Swiss Wellness mention zebra sharks - what Red Sea operators usually call leopard sharks - lying on the sand, as a matter of luck rather than expectation, and Dive Trek adds turtles and rays. Our own occurrence records for the pin are consistent with that: bluecheek and blacktail butterflyfish, twoband anemonefish, grey and giant morays, blue-spotted ribbontail rays, coral hind, coronation trout, emperor angelfish and eightline wrasse.

• Sheer wall on the north side, dived as a drift when the current allows
• Plateau running east and south, with shallow pinnacles for the safety stop
• Two large coral blocks under the mooring, from about 9 m to 20 m, full of anthias
• A deeper block at around 18 m with glassfish, large table corals and gorgonians
• Zebra sharks reported resting on the sand, as luck rather than expectation

Conditions

An offshore island reef with a live current: sheltered water behind the reef where the boat moors, moving water on the north wall, and an open-sea crossing to get there. Sources give the working range as 15 to 30 m with the mooring sand around 9 m. We found no source giving a visibility figure for this site, so we have not recorded one.

On current: The current on the north side is the defining condition here, and three separate operators describe it in the same terms: Ilios Dive Club, Dive Trek and Swiss Wellness Dive Club all warn it can be vicious there, and Seawolf Safari says the dives mostly run with a fast current toward the northern tip. That is also what makes the site work, since the standard profile is a drift from the north along the wall. The moorings behind the reef are sheltered, but the crossing out is over open water and can be rough. The difficulty rating is where sources part company: Ilios and one of Dive Trek's two entries call the site beginner, Dive Trek's longer entry calls it advanced, and Swiss Wellness heads its page advanced while saying in the text that the site suits all levels. We have taken the conservative reading. Dived from the mooring in slack water it is an easy reef; dived as the north-wall drift it is not, and you cannot always tell which dive you are getting until the boat runs a current check. Depths agree better: 15 to 30 m from Ilios and Dive Trek, a 31 m maximum from Swiss Wellness, with the mooring sand at about 9 m.