Hurghada vs. Sharm

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Chris Ra

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Location
Germany
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Hello,

me and my girlfriend are planning to spend 10 days in Egypt at the end of may and we were wondering what location we should choose for the best boat diving experience (day trips - not a liveaboard). We narrowed it down to Hurghada (and surroundings like El Gouna) and Sharm El Sheikh. Because it is more difficult to fly to Sharm, we were asking ourselves if it would be worth it. In some articles Sharm is praised to be more suitable for diving. Is this true? Or doesn't it really matter because you can also get by boat to the best diving sites from Hurghada?

Thank you for your help!
 
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That highly depends on what you want to see and how experienced you are.
If you are targeting daily boat trips the logistics will play a role: where does the boat starts from? is there is shuttle? will you really go every day?
Boat trips may be booked out in advance, although unlikely in these times. It may rather be that there are not enough people, so i would not discard dving from shore totally.
Sharm has got Ras Mohammed and several other nice spots as well as the Thitlegorm. In Hurghada James & Mac has it's own fleet and is also diving the Thitlegorm and several other wrecks.
However, i would rather receommend going further south: Soma Bay (The Breakers or one of th emore expensives), Abu Dabab / Elphinstone or further south (Wadi Lahmi)
See also the answers and recommendations in the other forum you posted your question to :D
 
Both are equally suitable for diving. Hurghada has enormous number of dive sites, weather permitting. What it lacks is wall diving. If you want to dive for instance Thistlegorm, then you better choose Sharm, but then again Hurghada region has great wreck diving as well with way more choice. Some operators from south Hurghada offer early morning trips to Panorama reef or Abu Kafan (wall diving). Sharm obviosly has Ras Mohammed. As you mentioned, some operators in HRG are also offering early morning day trips to Ras Mohammed or Thistlegorm.
Most of the Hotels in HRG have their own dive centre and jetty, so it is more convenient to have your boat departing from the same hotel, less stress. This is mostly not the case, in SSK.
You can also decide to go further south to Marsa Alam or Quesir. There will be more shore diving there thus, you do not have to spend the whole day on the boat should you want to do only 1 dive and chill out in the hotel.
All of them are equally good, I would close my eye and pick one of them :). Be aware that when you travel east-west direction by boat (from Hrg to RaMo for instance), it is generally a bit wavy, so more pleasant with good weather conditions.
 
In the present environment: Go where you get the easiest flight to. I second J&M in Hurgada or Blue Water Diving, in Makadi Bay Extra Divers as well as south at Three Corners. Book a Pauschalreise and make sure that the hotel or dive center can organise the PCR for the flight back.
Come better days, the yearly (or twice yearly :D) trip will become a given and you can check out all the diferent regions
 
Sharm would be a better choice by far. You can go on day boats to Ras Mohamed national park, at the reefs at Tiran island. Dunraven wreck is a small extra charge (like 30$). Thistelgorm is available as a day boat tip as well. Good wreck diving available from shore or RIB (Million Hope wreck).
 
Sharm would be a better choice by far. You can go on day boats to Ras Mohamed national park, at the reefs at Tiran island. Dunraven wreck is a small extra charge (like 30$). Thistelgorm is available as a day boat tip as well. Good wreck diving available from shore or RIB (Million Hope wreck).
Along the same lines as the OP, except this is for warm up dives, so to speak. My situation is that I'd like to get into the area several days (likely four or five, perhaps more) ahead of a Brothers, Daedalus, Elphinstone liveaboard that leaves from Hurghada. I am ~300 dives, Rescue/Deep/Nox and will be travelling with someone ~50 dives AOW/Nox. Our experience is primarily in Komodo, Lembogan, Maldives. We are the opposite of macro-divers. Our purpose is to relax after ~30 hours of flights/layovers, get some dives in and get back in the dive grove. The CCP virus has put us on ice for two years. Ras Mohammed sounds like it could blow the doors off Hurghada dives. We'd have to take the ~$60 ferry to Hurghada to get on the BDE trek dive boat. Is that worth doing or should we just take the dives we get in Hurghada? Any thoughts appreciated ! Ty...
 
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