Tobia Arbaa

The dive

Tobia Arbaa - 'four Tobia', though almost every operator description counts seven - is a group of coral pinnacles rising off a sandy bottom inside the Ras Abu Soma headland. The pillars stand roughly 12 to 15 m tall and their tops come within about a metre of the surface. The boat moors near one of them and the dive is a tour of the rest across open sand, which is why it is a photographers' site: legible structure, sand for contrast, and no depth to speak of.

Depth quotes cluster low and disagree at the top end. PADI records a 15 m maximum, one Safaga operator gives 16 m, and a dive guide and a Russian-language site description put the surrounding ground at 25 to 30 m to the south-east. We record the conservative 15 m: the pinnacle dive itself is shallow, and the deeper figures describe the sand you can wander onto rather than the plan.

Because it sits in the lee of the headland it is effectively a bad-weather site. One dive guide calls it wave and current free, and a second description says there are practically no waves or strong currents there. That, plus the depth, makes it a common night dive and a common first dive of a trip. Boat time is short - about 12 minutes by speedboat from a Soma Bay base, about 35 minutes from Safaga.

Our OBIS records for this position are the richest of the Soma Bay group, and they are reef-fish records rather than pelagics: bluespotted ribbontail ray and giant moray at the top of the list, then bullethead parrotfish, Desjardin's sailfin tang, common lionfish, Picasso triggerfish, scalefin anthias, masked and blackback butterflyfish, cornetfish, Red Sea bannerfish, blackside hawkfish, rusty and dusky parrotfish, crescent-tail bigeye, broomtail wrasse and both masked and starry pufferfish. Operator accounts add Napoleon wrasse, jacks, turtles and spiny devilfish on the sand.

• Seven coral pillars 12-15 m tall with tops reaching to about a metre
• Shallow: PADI records a 15 m maximum
• In the lee of the headland - described as effectively wave and current free
• Standard night dive, and a photographers' site
• About 12 minutes by speedboat from Soma Bay, about 35 minutes from Safaga

Conditions

A cluster of seven coral pillars on sand, 12-15 m tall, tops within about a metre of the surface, in the lee of the Ras Abu Soma headland. Two site descriptions call it practically free of waves and strong current. Working maximum around 15 m. No published visibility figure, so none is recorded.

On current: Two independent site descriptions say the position is sheltered by the headland and effectively free of waves and strong current. Depth sources disagree: PADI gives a 15 m maximum and a Safaga operator 16 m, while a dive guide and a Russian-language description put the surrounding ground at 25-30 m to the south-east. We record the conservative 15 m for the pinnacle dive. No source publishes a visibility figure, so none is recorded.

Dives & underwater footage