Djibouti is hands down the hottest place I have ever been. Heat is one thing but the worst was the humidity. It was unreal- everyday seemed to threaten rain and it never fell. I've lived in Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Egypt. Nothing came close. I never thought coral would tolerate such heat but it did. The surface temp was about 38C and underwater was about 35 until you got deep.
We were diving at about 37m before we would hit a small thermocline and say ...aaaaaaaah. A few mins later is was ..Ooooh.
To give you some idea of the difference between Djibouti and Sharm el Sheikh, when I left Djibouti and went back to Sharm for a couple of weeks in July 2010, I had to wear a fleece jacket and a hood on land... in July , in Egypt, in July. Diving, I was freezing- shaking with cold and the water temp was at about 28. My friends wanted to go up to Dahab- no way I would have had a cardiac.
Our shop in Djibouti would basically shut down because of the wind that would make things pretty iffy leaving harbour near the Kapinski hotel. We could still dive but the viz was about 3-5ft and there were a couple of bull sharks being fished up by some navy boys about 10 mins away.
