Taba, Egypt(by David Cumber)

Taba, is in the Sinai peninsula in north east Egypt. It is actually based in the Gulf of Aqaba, which connects to the Red sea. It's probably not the most well known of diving areas in the region, but this is due to there being very few resorts in the area. Eliat in Israel, which is only 12km away, is very heavy developed. But this is part of the joy of diving in the Taba region, due the lack of development, there are not a lot of divers and boats on the reefs. I stayed at the Hyatt in Taba heights, which has a separate company running its diving activities out of a new dive centre about 1km from the hotel. This is part of a major development which currently is three finished hotels and one still under construction. I was told that the plans are for up 20 hotels in the local area (so things will get busier in the years to come). They did seem to be some smaller hotels and apartments springing up along the coast so varied accommodation is becoming available. The set up for the diving is very good. There is a free shuttle bus that runs between the current hotels that gets you to the dive centre. There is shore diving outside the centre, where most of the beginner courses are run. But the rest of the diving is of three spacious, comfortable and well kitted large boats. The biggest boat is capable of carrying tens of divers. As previously mentioned, the area can be quite some days and one day it was only 7 divers on the one boat. This may not always be the case. There is no night diving, this is due to the location of Taba. From the beach you can see Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. So there is a lot of international water here, in a region that can be a bit unstable. So being out on the water at night is not allowed or probably recommended. The dive guides I spoke to said that something is trying to be done about this to make it possible. Hopefully this may happen as I think the night diving here could be sensational. The sites I saw were all fringing reefs close to shore, with very little current and great visibility. It would provide great conditions for night diving. To visit all the dive sites, it was simply a cruise along the coast line. Whether there are any reefs offshore is a good question. The dive centre certainly didn't travel very far at all to reach the sites (Often I found myself going down to the dive centre to then be brought back up past my hotel to dive and one day I could see my hotel for the duration of our diving). There didn't seem to be much enthusiasm for venturing further out for other dive sites, although this may also have been due to international restrictions and the possibility of heavy boat traffic to the port of Aqaba in Jordan. The only other restriction here is that the half day boat (back by lunch time) always visits the same two dive sites, and you have to pay for both dives (even if you only want to do one).The full day boat (the one that stays out all day) has a daily fixed schedule for the dive sites it visits, with two early dives and a choice of a third afternoon dive. Therefore you can visit all the dive sites available, but you have to go out for the whole day. Otherwise it's the same two sites everyday. I believe this is run this way as the third boat is for courses and they use the half day boat as a possible overflow boat if it gets very busy. It would have been nice to have a bit more of an adventuress schedule. I had water temperature of 27-29C (this can drop quite a few degrees in the winter), visibility never under 10M. There were three days of no wind and the sea looked like a pond. This created visibility, around the 30+M mark. The diving is excellent.

Ras Amira

Really nice dive site. It is based around a rocky bay, and in shallow water it's a rocky slope, with a good covering of hard corals. At around 5M it gets sandy with the large bombies. The fish life is really good along here. Lots of varities of butterfly and angel fish, pepper moray. The dive guide mentioned the possibility of seeing a frogfish, and just as he said we found it on the first bombie below the descent line. Must be his home bombie, as a few days later when I dived the site again (thought it was well worth another visit), he was there again. Also saw a baby boxfish with his yellow and black colouring, before it changes into its adult colours. As you go further down, the sandy slope is covered in sea grass, with the odd outcrop of staghorn and cabbage coral. Lots of groupers and angelfish around here. Saw a couple of really nice Arabian angelfish. We had a large bat fish following us around for several minutes at the 12M mark around the sea grass. As you head south into deeper water, at around 18-20M, there is a small shelf almost a wall, that is covered in nice coral. There are signs of some bleaching in this region, but there is still some magnificent coral around. Around the shelf area I saw a stone fish, scorpion fish, grey moray, lion fish and a couple of octopus. The octopus and lion fish were actually to be seen on every dive.

Mersa El Muqabila

Really close to the front of the dive centre. There isn't really a shallow point to this dive site. The mooring line is in around 10-12M of water, but there is not any current so it is an easy descent and ascent. You descend down to a reef of sandy areas in between some rather large coral formations. A lot of the coral is dead, but re-growth is occurring. The reef begins to slope off into deeper water, with the depth over 25M. On the slope, at 20M, is a sight of what the reef used to be. There is the largest cabbage coral I've ever seen. It was over 2.5M wide by around 3.5M high. In excellent condition, bright green, it is amazing. Not sure of the maximum growth per year of cabbage coral, but this must be hundreds of years old. Almost everything else around it is dead so it really stands out. I saw big eye taking cover underneath it, a peppered moray hunting through it and lots of anthias living in it. There were numerous lionfish all over the site. As mentioned earlier you will see several of these on every dive. We spotted a couple of nice nudibranch, a stone fish and some beautiful clear shrimps in a anemone. There was also a school of yellow tail barracuda hanging around. Nice site.

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Aquarium

So named, as it is meant to resemble an aquarium. This is slightly offshore and the descent is into 12M of water, and you can not really get any shallower. The main site is three large sandy areas in 16-20M, with nice coral formations, with sea grass in between. Best to stay on the sandy areas and watch the world go by. There is some really nice table corals here, and bombies with large groups of hatch fish, anthias and glass fish, this certainly allowed the dive site to live up to it's name. I also saw octopus, lionfish, blue spotted stingray and a torpedo ray. We ventured into the sea grass area, at the end of the dive, and found some razor fish and a moray swimming around.

Angels net

A bit like Aquarium, a large sandy area, with coral outcrops. The site gets its name from a fishing net tangled around some of the bombies. Nice coral again and ample fish life. In one bombie a saw five lion fish, a bluetooth trigger fish, two box fish and a pepper moray all fighting for room.

Zacks table

Again a couple of large sandy areas, surrounded by sea grass. But here the coral formations consist mainly of very large table coral. These are spectacular, really large and in excellent condition. I really like this dive site. Descent is down a line to about 12M (again no real shallow water here), and the best table coral are around 14-16M. It covers a large area, and you could easily spend a couple of dives on the site to examine it in detail. The normal suspects are on show, lion fish, angel fish, moray's, blue spotted stingray, scorpion fish. Added bonus was a crocodile fish, lying under one of the table coral. To add to the diving you can snorkel right outside of the hotels, and it is great snorkelling. Entry is via a couple of jetty's or a clearly marked out channel from the beach, which means no damage is done to the reef by people entering the water. There is a fringing reef on the shore that in some parts forms a small wall with overhangs. From this, you get a sandy slope of into deeper water, with occasional really large coral bombies. The vis is excellent, little current and loads to see. Numerous varities of butterfly fish and wrasse's, trumpet fish, octopus, blue spotted stingrays and scores of lionfish. The large bombies have cleaner wrasse on them, so you can watch barracuda coming in for a clean. Bigger stuff is possible to see and I spotted a couple of turtles, an eagle ray and a marbelled ray.

Good dives sites, with excellent marine life and some nice coral…what more can you ask for.

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