Small Crack

The dive

Sha'ab Mahmoud is a long coral barrier running northwest to southeast, west of Ras Mohammed, that walls off a large sandy lagoon roughly 10 m deep from the open sea. Two gaps cut through it. Small Crack is the southern one: a narrow split with a coral block sitting in the middle that divides it into two secondary channels of about 5 to 8 m. Outside the barrier the reef wall drops away to a sandy floor around 20 m, and one dive logged here by a SeaLog diver in September reached 24.1 m, so plan on the deeper figure rather than the operator's round number.

The dive is the gap itself. Tide fills and empties the lagoon twice a day through these channels, and the dive is planned around which way the water is going: on the ebb the flow runs south into the lagoon and carries you back towards a boat moored inside it, which is why operators prefer that state. On a strong northbound flood you are pushed out towards open sea instead, and dive centres are blunt that this is not a dive to do without a zodiac following you. Check the direction before anyone gets in.

What the current buys is the life it feeds. The channel and the outer wall carry soft coral, and Sha'ab Mahmoud is also run as a night dive for the resident flashlight fish when the weather allows. The species recorded at this pin are ordinary northern Red Sea reef fauna rather than anything unusual, with garden eels and a Spanish dancer among them, and hawksbill turtles, mackerel and barracuda are reported around the wider reef.

This is not Beacon Rock and not the Dunraven, both of which sit about 4 km away at the southern tip of the same lagoon and are separate pins. Small Crack is dived from Sharm day boats, from overnight Thistlegorm trips, and by northern-route liveaboards moored inside the lagoon.

• A split in the barrier reef with a coral block in the middle, forming two channels of 5-8 m
• Drift through the gap on the ebb, from the outer reef into the lagoon
• Outer reef wall dropping to sand at 20 m and deeper
• Run as a night dive for the resident flashlight fish when the weather allows

Conditions

Shallow, sandy, and defined by whichever way the tide is running. The two secondary channels sit at 5 to 8 m and the outer wall drops to sand at around 20 m. No operator we could read gives a visibility figure for this site; on tide-driven reefs in this area, visibility tracks the current, so treat it as variable rather than assume a number. Summer water on Sha'ab Mahmoud is quoted at 29 degrees by one liveaboard operator, warm enough for a shorty.

On current: Tidal, and the defining feature of the dive rather than an incidental condition. The lagoon behind Sha'ab Mahmoud fills and empties twice daily through the two cracks, and dive centres describe the resulting current as able to become extremely strong. The preferred state is the ebb, when the flow runs south through the crack into the lagoon and returns you towards a boat moored inside it. A strong northbound flow pushes divers out to open sea and operators say plainly not to dive it without a zodiac in support. Sources put slightly different depths on the outer wall: dive centres say the wall reaches a sandy floor around 20 m, while one dive logged at this pin by a SeaLog diver recorded 24.1 m, and the deeper measurement is used here.