Diving in Sharm El Sheikh

The southern tip of Sinai, where the Gulf of Aqaba and the Gulf of Suez meet the open Red Sea, puts walls, wrecks and a national park within reach of a single hotel bed. Ras Mohammed was declared a national park in 1983, the first in Egypt. It covers 480 km2, 70% of it marine, having grown from an original 97 km2, and now extends to Tiran and Sanafir islands. Its signature dive is Shark and Yolanda Reef, where an 800 m wall and the Yolanda's cargo field, bathroom fittings included, share one current. North of town the Straits of Tiran hold four reefs: Jackson for fast wall drifts and hammerhead sightings from August to early October, and Thomas for soft-coral walls above a canyon that runs far past recreational depth. Operators place manta rays, and the odd whitetip reef shark, off Sodfa from March to the end of June.

Nearer to town, Ras Umm Sid, Temple and the Gardens give sheltered coral pinnacles and night dives with no current to manage. The Thistlegorm, a British cargo ship bombed on 6 October 1941 and found by Cousteau in the early 1950s, lies at around 30 m with trucks, motorcycles and rifles in its holds. Its two locomotives were deck cargo blown clear of the hull and lie on the seabed beside it; they are often described as being in the holds, and they are not. The overturned Dunraven, which struck the reef in 1876 and is now thick with coral, is the other wreck people travel for.

Coral health varies by sector. HEPCA's 2024 Bleach Watch put the Gulf of Aqaba among the least affected stretches of the Egyptian coast, yet that sector still saw bleaching of about 10% of colonies on the reef flat and roughly 25% at 10 m.

Sharm El Sheikh International (SSH) is about 10 km from town. Centres collect divers from hotels between 07:00 and 08:30 and bring them back between 15:30 and 17:00, with two guided boat dives, tanks and weights included and a third dive available on board. Ras Mohammed and Tiran are day-boat trips. The Thistlegorm is a separate excursion with a very early start and a surcharge, so a liveaboard suits anyone whose priority is the wreck. Park and marine fees go on top of every trip price and are paid locally; confirm the current rates with your centre. Egypt's tourism ministry said in April 2026 that it is updating diving regulations and developing the Hyperbaric Medical Center in Sharm.

Most centres set the Sharm coast at Open Water and the Tiran reefs and the Thistlegorm at Advanced. In 2024 PADI EMEA announced that members providing other agencies' courses would lose membership across the Middle East, so centres here have split between staying with PADI and moving to SSI; check which agency a centre teaches before booking a course. Spring and autumn are the easiest seasons; bring 3 mm for summer and 5 mm for winter.