Diving in Egypt

Egypt's diving sorts itself by how far from the beach you want to be. Dahab sits at one end, where reefs, canyons and the Blue Hole are reached on foot. At the other end the Brothers, Daedalus, Rocky Island and St John's lie out at sea and are dived only from a liveaboard. Everything else falls between, with day boats running from resort towns.

For wrecks and walls, Sharm El Sheikh at the tip of Sinai has the widest span, from beginner reefs to advanced current. Boats reach the walls of Ras Mohammed, the reefs of the Straits of Tiran and, on a long crossing, the SS Thistlegorm. Hurghada is the wreck-and-liveaboard port. Abu Nuhas holds several wrecks, the Giftun reefs and the Sha'ab El Erg dolphin lagoon fill the inshore days, and many liveaboard itineraries depart from here. Safaga, to the south, is a quieter day-boat base built around the Salem Express, a ferry wreck dived as a memorial.

Wildlife leads in the south. Marsa Alam has resident dugongs in the Abu Dabbab seagrass bays, spinner dolphins at Samadai, oceanic whitetips at Elphinstone and eco-villages where the house reef means unlimited shore diving. Further south, Hamata puts the Fury Shoals reefs and the Sataya dolphin lagoon within day-boat reach of a fixed base.

The Brothers add sheer walls, oceanic whitetips and two wrecks, with threshers on the plateau at dawn. Daedalus is a lighthouse reef where hammerheads school off the north plateau. Rocky Island and Zabargad combine a current-swept wall with a wreck and turtle bays. St John's has coral gardens and shallow caverns pierced by shafts of light. Strong current is the common report at the islands and in the Straits of Tiran, which is much of why they sit at the advanced end; the operator's logged-dive minimum is covered below.

Egypt has no national diver licence. PADI, SSI, BSAC, CMAS and equivalent certifications are accepted by dive centres and liveaboards, and you sign the operator's paperwork and dive. The Chamber of Diving and Water Sports (CDWS) licenses operators, and its policy requires a service provider to be registered to ISO 24803:2007 / EN 14467:2004 to obtain a licence to operate in Egypt. Its depth policy caps recreational air diving at 40 m and decompression-procedure dives at 45 m, extended-range dives at 55 m and normoxic trimix at 60 m, and does not recommend or support technical diving beyond those limits; technical dives past them call for proof of insurance to the planned depth. The tourism ministry reviewed updating diving regulations in April 2026, so confirm current rules with your operator.

The offshore itineraries carry their own conditions. Liveaboard operators set a logged-dive minimum that differs by company, from 30 to 50 dives, and each is that operator's own booking rule. The Brothers lie inside a marine protectorate, so coast guard authorisation and a fee apply, and the operator handles both. Ras Mohammed National Park was declared in 1983, and protected areas fall under Law 102/1983, administered by the Egyptian Environment Affairs Agency. Operators usually collect marine-park fees for you.

Three airports serve the coast: Hurghada (HRG), Sharm El Sheikh (SSH) and Marsa Alam (RMF). Dahab is about 80 km from Sharm El Sheikh airport, and Marsa Alam is a long coastal drive of several hours south of Hurghada. Liveaboards leave from Hurghada or Port Ghalib.

Recompression chambers are listed at Sharm El Sheikh, where the Hyperbaric Medical Center has run since 1993 and the same director leads the Dahab centre, at HyperMed in Hurghada, and at Baro Medical, set up in 2006 at Marsa Shagra near Marsa Alam. Offshore liveaboards arrange evacuation to the nearest chamber, and dive-accident insurance is sensible for any liveaboard week.