Red Sea Diving

The Red Sea spreads over 2000 km from Bab El Mandev, then along the Sinai to Eilat. The sea's greatest width is only 300 km. The Red Sea was created 25 million years ago when both lands broke part.

Nobody actually knows what is the source of this name.One of the theories claims that it is named after a local sea weed named Trichodesmium erythraeum which turns the strong blue-green sea water to red-brown when it dies. The red sea is considered the hottest and saltiest of all oceans. The Red Sea reaches to a depth of over 2000 m. A combination of ideal conditions such as deep and clear water, steep and rocky beaches creates a coral world of flora and fauna containing over 800 species of fish.

I began my aquatic adventures here snorkeling in the Red Sea at Sharm El Sheik. The view below was so spectacular that I soon got into diving. Now I have a tad over three hundred dives in such places as Sharm El Sheik, Ras Mohamed, Dahab, Hurghada, and Safaga. Dives available are reef diving from the shore or take a boat, which include, wall diving, canyon diving, wreck diving, and cave diving.

OK, now you want to go diving, so, when is the best time of the year to go? If you ask me, anytime is good, day or night. Generally speaking, the high tourist season is between December and March. But that's rapidly changing due to the expanding accommodations, which are put there by the large tourist companies, which mean advertising campaigns to bring the folks in to spend their money. This in turn means more fins to knock off the reef, and more rubbish to litter the shores and reefs.

Fish, like terrestrial birds, are distinguished by their multifariousness, their many colors and their adaptation to all possible habitats in the sea. Like birds they need protection from man’s malevolent hand. The danger to their survival in marine life is, above all, due to pollution of the sea and to the destruction of the reefs, where the majority of species are found.