Red Sea Diver’s Pre-Holiday Tips

Diving and Red Sea

There are some fantastic places in the world for diving… Thailand, Great Barrier Reef, Maldives, Caymans, Mexico…. the list is endless and everyone has their favourites. In the top three of every diver’s list will however be the Red Sea…. warm crystal clear waters, abundance of fish and fauna, a huge range of dive sites from easy to advanced and a massive infrastructure of diver provisions from training, guiding, boats, equipment and safety support. Those divers who have found Red Sea diving become frequent visitors, time and time again. Even the dive professionals living and working out here never tire of what the Red Sea has to offer.

Red Sea

A long narrow sea surrounded by mountains this sea rarely sees strong winds or waves and with virtually no tide movement the shoreline suffers only light erosion and enables almost all of the 5,000km coast to support the growth of fantastic coral reefs and home for trillions of fish.

The Red Sea is 2,250km long, on average only 300km wide and at its deepest 2,850m. It is separated from the rest of the world’s oceans at its southern most point, Bab el-Mandeb. Here the opening to the Indian Ocean is only 29km wide and a very shallow 134m. Now it’s pretty handy having this open; without it the sea level would fall around 1.5m per year making this year’s beach property a cliff top home within 25 years!!

With almost constant sunshine, warm dry air and sea temperatures that rarely fall below 20C the sea evaporates around 900 billion cubic metres every year…. making topping up from the Indian Ocean a constant need. This incredible evaporation rate has led to another uniqueness for this sea…. a salinity of over 38% (41% in the Gulfs of Suez and Aqaba) making it the highest of all the worlds seas except the Dead Sea.

Water temperatures range from 20C in winter to 30C in summer…. pretty impressive. Uniquely, the sea gets warmer the deeper you go. In the Atlantis II Trench at a depth of 2,000m the temperatures range from 30-63C! At this depth the Red Sea is the scene of geothermic activity from the earth’s core and magma which not only heats but pumps incredible amounts of minerals into the waters supporting the incredible diverse marine life.

There are over 250 species of coral to be found, 8% endemic to the Red Sea, ranging from soft fragile to large hard varieties. The fish stock is enormous with over 1,250 species, some 20% of the kinds only found in these waters. Some seriously small fish and some seriously large; be honest a Whale Shark at 18 metres is pretty big; fortunately it’s a plankton eater! The name Red Sea dates back to before 500BC when the Greeks called it the Erythros Sea, Erythros being ancient Greek for Red. Another source may be that in certain limited areas the sea takes on a reddish hue from an algae. More likely the name comes from the surrounding coasts which are predominately composed of reddish rock which reflects of the water, particularly at sunset.

Diving

European divers have long considered the Red Sea to be a prime dive location. The first diving expeditions started back in the 1950’s, very low numbers with little to no local support. Diving gained pace in the 80’s and really took off in the 90’s.

Today, throughout the Egyptian Red Sea, diving is a major tourist attraction. Dive centres, training schools and world leading staff have made this area the world’s largest diver training and development area.

The support for the diver from local businesses and the Egyptian Government is second to none. Topping the list of support is the requirement for the provision of skilled staff, concentration on diver safety and diver specific medical centres and rescue facilities.

The area has many, many hundreds of recognised dive site; some, especially in the environmentally protected areas, are amongst the finest sites in the world, not just in the Red Sea. Visibility in the warm waters ranges from 30 to 75 metres giving fantastic panoramic views of coral formations and thousands of shoaling fish….. drifting gently into a shawl of over a thousand barracuda is awesome, watching a cruising White Tip Oceanic tunnel through them is mind blowing.

Travelling Tips for diving

For some you will have been here many times before, for many it will be your first time. We have listed below a few tips related to your diving needs:

Equipment is readily available to hire. However, for those with their own equipment you will find most of it very suitable for diving here in the Red Sea. All dive tours include the provision of tanks, weights and weight belts…. leave yours at home, especially the weights and tank. Most airlines and tour operators accept that many divers come to the Red Sea and if you approach the airline 3 or 4 weeks before you travel they may increase your baggage allowance for dive gear by 10kg and sometimes free of charge or for only a small charge.  Ask your individual air carrier well in advance of your flight if your weight allowance can be increased.

If you are from northern Europe the lightest wetsuit you may have is a 7mm full. Ideal for winter diving here but in our summer you will probably find this too warm by far…. More often than not in summer most will wear a 3mm or 5mm shorty; or indeed no wetsuit at all. For little cost you can rent just a wetsuit to go with the rest of your kit.

If you are bringing a torch save the weight by removing the batteries if possible. All sizes can be obtained out here. Torches for night diving can also be hired from the centre.

Dive knives, in whatever quantity you usually wear, leave at home. Knives and indeed gloves are not needed nor permitted in the Red Sea. With no fishing and most of the areas protected you won’t need to cut your way out of any entanglement.

Check your equipment before coming, have it serviced if needed and carry spare mask and fin straps. There are lots of dive shops in Hurghada and Sharm for spares and our shop can always get them for you but one can always guarantee that if a fin strap is going to break it will be at the beginning of the 1st dive of the day, almost never after the last dive!  Pack a travel sized “Save-a-Dive” Kit and you just may be the hero of the day for yourself or a buddy!

If you are going to bring underwater cameras do ensure you have spare housing seals, cleaning materials and any special supplies of film, memory cards,  etc. Again, many stores around may have your brand but you can never be sure; and anyway, do you want to spend valuable diving time trudging around dive shops looking for obscure housing seals.  Make sure all batteries are charged before you board the boat as most boats will not have suitable outlets available to charge your cameras or computers.

A sun hat, sun glasses,a book or Kindle  to read are fairly essential although I can promise that on boat trips you will read the same chapter time and time again because we know that next to diving, divers love talking about it best!

Do check that your travel or other insurance covers SCUBA diving. Except for technical diving the maximum depth we dive to in the Red Sea is 30 metres; for Open Water Certificated level or equivalent the maximum is 18 metres.

Last and not least do remember to bring your Certification card and log book…. You will need them.

A little preparation before your holiday can help you make the most of your holiday time and can mean spending more time underwater exploring the glorious Red Sea!