Marsa Alam, Red Sea, Egypt

Sha'ab Marsa Alam

Sha'ab Marsa Alam (also called Sha'ab Samadai's eastern reef) is an offshore submerged reef south of Marsa Alam city, dived as part of day-boat itineraries from the local marinas. The reef is a series of coral plateaus and pinnacles on a sandy bottom at 22–28 metres, with the deepest points dropping to 40 metres. The site is renowned for its hard coral diversity and consistently good encounters with reef sharks (whitetip and grey), Napoleon wrasses, large schools of bumphead parrotfish and dolphins (a resident pod of Indo-Pacific bottlenose, Tursiops aduncus, frequents the area). Soft corals and gorgonians decorate the deeper pinnacles. Currents are usually moderate. Visibility 25–35 metres. The site is inside the buffer of the Wadi El Gemal protected area.