Egypt - Marsa Alam

[Desert Roos]

Marsa Alam is a great place to dive if you are only going for the diveing... Dahab is also great, money wise, and the quality of diving..you have there a big variety of accomidation, and famous diving spots like the blue hole, canyons, caves and more...the dives are offshore dives..

Sharm and hurghada are cheeper, because they have a lot of hotels at least 25 times more than Dahab, that effects the price, and its not just for divers ..its a beach holiday as well,

george

 

[stefo2]

I was contacted by one club in Marsa Alam called Deep South Diving. Has anyone any reliable info on that organisation???

Jaak, haven't dived with them myself (dived with Red Sea Diving Safaris at their Marsa Shagra Camp), but someone I "know" from another forum dived with them and was quite happy with everything. If you're not sure about them I can try and forward your question to him (actually, may be a she), maybe they can give you some more details.

 

[jaak]

Jaak, haven't dived with them myself (dived with Red Sea Diving Safaris at their Marsa Shagra Camp), but someone I "know" from another forum dived with them and was quite happy with everything. If you're not sure about them I can try and forward your question to him (actually, may be a she), maybe they can give you some more details.

Have these people dived with any other centers in Egipt, i mean do they have anyone to compare with? How come there prices are twice as cheep than the ones Emperordivers offered us? I hope the quality is not half cheeper.

thanks

 

[stefo2]

Have these people dived with any other centers in Egipt, i mean do they have anyone to compare with? How come there prices are twice as cheep than the ones Emperordivers offered us? I hope the quality is not half cheeper.

thanks

Sorry, don't know if they have dived with anyone else in Egypt, but they definetely have done a lot of diving round the world.
Don't know the prices of Emperor Divers, nor have I dived with them, but compared to red Sea Diving Safaris (which provided excellent service), and Deep South were a bit cheaper, but not half the price.

 

[Desert Roos]

I would agree with the liveaboard choice, Marsa alam is a good choice at the moment if you are looking for a good quality diving in the red sea, the hotels are limited and expensive as well as drinks, yet liveaboard alles is inclusief only alcoholic drinks you pay.never the less you dont have to pay the extra fees$$ for diving elphinstone, st johnes and dolphin reef..and 3-4 dives per day..which is the best..if you wana know more dive in www.desert-roos.com
george

 

[gehadoski]

I have never been to Marsa A'alam before but I have been to the brothers Island. All I want to say is, try "LADY M" liveaboard it is one of the best liveaboads in the red sea. If you want more information about that boat visit www.LADYM.com I'm sure you that you will find 5 star service on that liveaboard.
Have a nice time and dive safe

 

[jaak]

Thanks to all :-D

 

[StefanB]

Just came back from a 4 weeks stay in Egypt (Sharm/ Hurghada/ South) and only can highly recommend the south. For one week we have been some 40 KM south of Marsa Alam in Tondoba Bay with Blue Heaven Holidays - a desert camp with not much more to do than diving. Honestly, the first two days we were nearly alone at all the dive sites, on the third day, another 3 germans joined us.

We have seen so much wildlife there - incredible. It was full and full and full of everything (except sharks - but this is not the reight season anyway) visibility most of times 30 + and reefs - incredible. Coming back to Hurghada was almost like diving in a toilette that after!!!!

Can only highly recommend to go there. Owner is a guy called Ayman Taher, and he will pick you up in Hurghada. For more info, visit his website on www.blueheavenholidays.com

Stefan

 

[Josef]

Hi!

We're planning a trip to Egipt in November but as we've already been to Sharm and Hurghada we would like to take on something new. So came up with this fairly new place called Marsa Alam.
The question is - has anyone been diving there? Is it worth the trip and could you recommend some divingcenter there?

Thanks,

Jaak

Hallo Jaak,
try this webside: www.beachsafari.nl there are the most informations about from Marsa Alam.
Greetings Josef

 

[Mark Goodchild]

Not for the shoredives. You'll need minimum AOWD for Elphinstone and at least 40 or 50 dives.

This is not strictly speaking true. I dived a couple of weeks ago with Emperor divers. I dived Elphinstone and am only just certified a AOWD. I think if you're on a liveaboard then perhaps the 50+ dives for the offshore sites is true. The government has imposed this diving level. Certainly this is true of the Brothers, Daedelous etc.

As with anything though your 50 dives might have been easy shore diving somewhere so this is all relative. So some common sense is needed.

Emperor divers decide on a case by case basis whether you are up to the dive site or not. Also more advanced groups will dive a slightly different dive to the more novice divers. Novice divers might only dive the wall to 20-25m. The advanced groups might go looking for the sharks on the plateaus at 30-40m.

Even if you dive the easier dive, its still worth the long trip from Marsa Alam. 2-2 1/2 hours. (The sea can be rough too... :-( )

Elphinstone's coral reef is amazing. Very nice hard and soft corals. Fantastic visibility and decent fish life. I did n't see much in the way of big stuff but some of the more advanced group saw hammerheads and grey reef sharks. I expected bigger shoals of fish too so in that respect was a little disappointed. But as ever you never know what you'll see...anything is possible!

I've some images. Not great but I'm getting better!
http://www.zerovisibility.co.uk/Gallery.htm

Hope this helps!
Mark Goodchild