Trip Report; Sharm El Sheik

[Ian T]

Finally I got to dive around Sharm.. been wanting to do that for some time now. Thistlegorm, Ras Mohammed, Strait of Tiran - the places you read about in the dive magazines...

The missus and I had our plan down pat..7 days of diving - about 20 dives, she would do her Nitrox-course there.. we booked with the dive center (10%-discount for booking online - good deal!!!)

We stayed at Dreams Beach (the hotel is big - too big for us! We like the small, cozy places) and dove with their onsite dive center ScubaDreamer - highly recommended. Professional, well-organized and friendly. (google them on the net) They did all they could for us. Thanks Claus, Teo, Matteo, Rico, Anneli and Uwe!!!

Unfortunately the dive sites were a disappointment and the town of Sharm even more so. It's all one big hotel and too many people, which of course also means that there are too many divers at each site. It was low-season so only about 50 dive boats left Sharm harbor each day...*sigh*

Arriving at a dive site and you can count 1, 2, 3, 4...25 dive boats already there (and they are all carrying 15-25 divers/snorklers - you can imagine...)
The best dives were the ones mentioned at the top, but diving the Thistlegorm with 250 other divers wasn't really fun...Bubbles everywhere - where's the wreck?
Luckily most of them had left by the time we did our second dive there so we were the only ones there (and no current at all!!!!)
The sites in the Local Dive category were all the same, not a lot of fish and loads of dead corals. On some sites, there were so many boats that when they scooted around on the surface, your chest vibrated even at a depth of 20-22m. 'The Silent World' - yeah right!

Of course, everything depends on your experiences and expectations. As far as experience - I would take any dive here than the Local Dives in Sharm any day of the month and twice on a Friday.
Expectations - the only dives I had high expectations for, were the Thistlegorm and they were fulfilled. Great dive, huge wreck - pleasure the whole day!
They say that diving in/around Sharm is very seasonal - that during the summer, there is more marine life. I certainly hope so...

Going back to Sharm? Naaah...if we dive the Red Sea again, we'll go to Aqaba or a liveaboard down south....

 

[Jai Bar]

I am really sad that this was your experience from Sharm :-(

There aren't many dive sites as good as Ras Mohammed, and on a good day...
Tiran also has some good divesites, and I am not sure where you've been diving where you couldn't see lots of fish and loads of dead corals.

I just came back from a southern liveaboard and except the close encounters with Oceanic White tips, dive sites down there were more or less the same as Tiran's and Ras Mohammed.
Aqaba is good, but by far uncomparable with Egypt.

If you want to avoid the crowds in Sharm/Naama, you can take a liveaboard. In many cases you'll be early in divesites before local daily boats arrive, and doing more dives every day as most sites are relatively close.

 

[Lawrence914]

I'm surprised about your experience. Ras Mo is pretty intense... though certainly better in the summer months.

Naama Bay & Sharm should have enough stuff to do in the evenings so you're not too bored. Did you go to Naama?

The Thistlegorm is always busy these days. Five years ago, it didn't seem as much as it was... but these days there are always several boats jockeying for position. I've heard rumor (and it's only rumor) that it may end up off limits.

Honestly, wreck diving isn't my favorite thing, so I wouldn't be heartbroken. In my heart, I view places like that as graveyards - someplace special to be respected.

-Lawrence

 

[Ian T]

Jai Bar... Here in Oman, especially the Dimaniyat Islands, we have pristine corals. 90 % of the damage is natural; storms, crowns of thorns etc. There are some nets hanging on the reefs, but they don't damage the reefs that much since they get overgrown after some time.
On just about any one dive here, we probably see more fish here than we did all week in Sharm.
But like I said in my original post, ppl have told me that the amount of fish life is seasonal, so I could be wrong...

Lawrence...
It's not so much about being bored - we weren't! Even though it doesn't feel like we have been in Egypt. We live in Oman and was, maybe, expecting something a little more of Arabic/Egyptian culture. But apart from that, we didn't really go there for the cultural experience - it was all about diving and the dive expericences we had.