Dive Sites | Dahab

321dive is committed to providing the best value and most professional access to dive sites around the Egyptian Sinai and eastern Mediterranean.

All of the dive sites can be visited if chosen within the week, subject to sea conditions.

From beginners embarking upon their first confined dive to technical divers, from wrecks to coral gardens, from clown fish to white tipped sharks, the Red Sea has it all. Below are some of the dive sites that can be accessed from our venues.

The Bells

A true vertical wall, which offers divers an exciting entry through a narrow chimney. Bells is full of overhangs and fissures, with many swim-throughs and cavelets. Toward the Blue Hole in the south the reef profile softens to a steep slope. The dive begins in a small slot in the reef table about 100m north of the Blue Hole. Descend through the tube-like fissure and, after reaching your maximum depth, ascend slowly while following the reef south to the saddle marking the Blue Hole. A head-first, spiralling descent through the chimney adds a new dimension to the confined space of the tube.

The saddle, at approximately 6m from the top of the reef, is one exit point. Current permitting, divers are able to enjoy a relaxing drift along the wall towards the saddle, and then exit through the Blue Hole. There is a good growth of plate and cabbage coral, black coral bushes, white soft corals and diverse fish life. Like all wall sites, this site should be treated with caution. Refer to your depth gauge, and be careful not to exceed your maximum depth. Current permitting, divers are able to enjoy a relaxing drift along the wall towards the saddle entry to the Blue Hole.

Eel Garden

This is a gently sloping wall dive to suit all levels of divers and offers easy entry and exit through a shallow sandy lagoon, home to several lion fish. As the name suggests there are numerous garden eels that can be seen opposite the wall in the white sloping sand bank. The wall starts at 3m and has a maximum depth of approximately 16 metres.

Exiting the lagoon and swimming across the sandy slopes, viewing the garden eels at close proximity, will bring you to a beautiful garden littered with hard and soft corals and other aquatic life. Divers can then return to the lagoon along the wall which is alive with colour and texture. For those with good air consumption, a drift dive from the Eel garden to the Lighthouse offers a varied and relaxing dive.

Blue Hole

A lot has been written about the Blue Hole. Most of it focuses on the dive sites reputation as one of the worlds most dangerous dives. But only when the rules are broken and deep diving, especially on air, is attempted. The reason? `The Archway`. Inside the hole at a depth of 60m, the top of a Cathedral sized archway reveals itself.

The bottom of the arch lies at over 100 metres and the whole arch breaks through the Blue hole to the open sea wall. It is the `challenge` of The Arch, dropping down to 60 metres and beyond, then swimming through the 25mtrs of archway and finally, (if your lucks in) ascending on the other side that has led to so many compressed air dives ending in fatality. It is to be stressed that Extended range diving or better still Mixed Gas diving (Tri mix) with the proper training and experience is the ONLY way to reach these depths.

One of the greatest attractions of the Blue Hole lies on the rich sloping reef outside. A shallow lip over the reef table at 6m leads to the outer reef. The reef slope, one of the Red Sea`s deepest and most spectacular drop offs, is rich in hard corals, particularly the section to the south of the lagoon. Triggerfish, jacks, unicorns, parrotfish, angels, grouper and surgeonfish are all part of the variety of fish life on the outer reef.

Snorkelling here can be just as rewarding as diving and it`s a great place to hang out on a non diving day, relaxing in the small cafes that lie almost at the edge of the Hole.

Lighthouse

The Lighthouse, situated at the Northern end of the bay of Dahab, is home to the confined water training area due to its large sandy slopes and gentle drop off. The Lighthouse offers a number of different dives depending on the route chosen. The sprawling coral gardens offer an abundance of marine life and vividly colourful corals, extending far from the shore.

The Lighthouse is made up of a large rocky wall that wraps around the point whilst heading north to the Eel Garden. The wall and the sprawling coral gardens, which alongside a spectacular variety of coral, feature here and make it a very popular dive site. The Lighthouse is also a very reputable night dive area where it is not uncommon to see sleeping parrot fish, Spanish dancers, Red Sea lobsters, shrimps, hermit crabs and much more.

The Canyon

This site takes its name from a long and very beautiful cavern under the seabed and is an essential dive for all fanatics of caves and cavern diving. This cavern lies north to south from the shallow reef offshore. Access to the site is through a shallow (3m) lagoon lying a few steps from the shoreline. Once outside the lagoon, a large coral mound lying some 10m out from the reef face, at a depth of around 14m marks the entrance to the canyon.

An opening, just wide enough to free-fall through comfortably, leads to the first chamber. A careful drop to 30m lands you on the bottom of the cavern. Sunlight penetrates through various large openings allowing excellent visibility throughout the dive. Ascending, the fissure snakes its ways up from the depths, to emerge in a large coral dome, known as the Fish Bowl. This is a smaller cave at the shallow end of the canyon and is filled with thousands of shimmering glassfish.

Continuing through the fish bowl, exit the cave at 18m, and swim back over the Canyon to catch your bubbles forcing their way through the seabed in straight columns reaching to the surface. The lagoon leads out to beautiful coral gardens which can only be fully explored after several visits Caution is required on this dive due to parts of the Canyon having an overhead environment. But with the proper planning and the use of one of our experienced dive guides, it is both a safe and highly rewarding experience.