Bannerfish Bay

The bottom slopes gently away from the entry, with coral formations first, then hills of seagrass over sandy patches and a small reef beyond. Coral, seagrass and sand lie within a few fin kicks of each other, and each holds its own animals. Seahorses grip the seagrass, pipefish hang among the blades, and the sand hides flatfish, sea-moths, scorpionfish, stonefish and the Red Sea walkman.

Car tyres and clay pots dropped by divers over the years now serve as dens for eels and octopus, with anemones and small fish around them, and the small wreck lies on the same ground. Schools of bannerfish patrol the outer reef zone. Turtles and rays visit, and dolphins appear now and then. When conditions allow, the dive can drift south toward Mashraba over broken coral heads, sand and seagrass.

Three habitats share one gentle shore dive, and the animals in each are different. A slow pass along the seagrass, a long look at a tyre stack and a scan of the sand for an outline that does not belong all pay off here.

Open Water divers are the usual audience. A buoyancy park with hoops sits just north of the main bay and serves the Peak Performance Buoyancy course, so the site works as a classroom for the same skill the macro life demands.

Seahorses, pipefish, sea-moths, nudibranchs, frogfish and the walkman reward a macro lens and a patient approach. Wide-angle has its moment when the bannerfish schools gather over the outer reef.

Sea Dancer, H2O Divers and Sinai Divers (at its Backpackers base) all use the bay as their house reef, so a wade-in at the Lighthouse entry reaches it with kit rolled over from any of them.

Venomous spines sit on the sand patches with no visible outline to give them away. Hover above the sand to look, and keep trim level as you approach a subject.