Some from de Red Sea

Some pictures from last year at the Red sea. Always a wonderfull place for taking underwater pictures.

Sin título by Iñaki Alkalde, en Flickr

What's it like diving the Red Sea?  By that I mean not just dive conditions and temps, but dive operations, lodging and travel?

Here in the states, the vast majority of my diving opportunities are in the Caribbean.  One wonders what it is like elsewhere.

9 hours ago, phxazcraig said:

What's it like diving the Red Sea?  By that I mean not just dive conditions and temps, but dive operations, lodging and travel?

Here in the states, the vast majority of my diving opportunities are in the Caribbean.  One wonders what it is like elsewhere.

 

That's quite a difficult question to answer given the huge variety. Everything from day boats heading to very busy dive sites in the northern Red Sea (RS) out of towns like Sharm el-Sheikh, Hurghada and Dahab; to liveaboards heading into the north or down south into areas approaching the Sudanese border. The latter visit dives sites significantly less busy.

Each of the towns have many dive operators varying from the very good to the slightly dubious. Lots of Wetpixelers - especially the European ones - can give you lots of recommendations as the RS is generally about a 5-6 hour flight from Europe and provides some of the best warm (depending on the season) water diving in this part of the world. 

There is huge variety in terms of  price too. From budget backpack to, say, 4-star. 

The actual variety of diving tends to concentrate on walls and pinnacles and could generally be classed as wide-angle photo diving. Encounters with paelagics are not unusual, lots of hard and colourful soft coral. There is lots of high-quality wreck diving in the northern area. Some of them are iconic: The Thistlegorm for example - a WW2 freighter that was bombed and sank with tons of military cargo which can still be seen. It's one of those dives which European divers will discuss endlessly over a beer.....

Like many on WP, I've bene there many times and always have a greta time. The liveaboards I have always found excellent (check out Emperor Divers as an example). Good accommodation, usually very good food. 4 dives a day, usually very agreeable fellow guests - and, generally, at a very good price. What's there not to like?

I hope that helps a little. If you would like more info, maybe narrow the question down a bit! But I am sure there are going to be lots of contributions to this post.

Very nice - love the colors on those reef scenes!

Beautiful work Tim!  My wife and I were in the Red Sea this past November.  Amazing diving off the Aggressor II and all the cool shipwrecks ... oh my!!!  Nice shots.