Well in this post, I want to talk about our last week in Egypt and how we ended up diving in Egypt. I wanted to carry on our diary from where we got off the dahabiya and get to our diving spot and then all the way to Turkey but then changed my mind and decided to dedicate a post just to diving in Egypt and cover all its aspects including planning, location, cost and the experience itself. So here it is, let’s start 🙂
Where to go in Egypt for Diving?
Ok let’s start with where to choose for diving first and believe me there are plenty in Egypt. To begin with that, let’s have a look at Egypt map. Egypt has access to the Mediterranean sea in the north and the Red sea on its east side which separates Egypt from Saudi Arabia. Sinnai Peninsula on the northern side of the Red sea, created two interesting water passage on both side. The famous Suez Channel is the left one. Before getting to the diving spots, just check how Jordan and especially Israel have access to the Red sea. Some of the most fascinating borders that you might see on planet earth. Looking at it, the whole Sinai Peninsula unstable situation makes sense, right?
Anyway getting away from geopolitics, both Mediterranean sea and Red see have very good diving spots. But getting to Egypt, I personally prefer to try and dive in one and only Red sea, with its amazing water quality, stunning marine life and some of the world’s best diving spots in the world. The other unique feature of the Red sea is its unique beaches in the middle of desert which is completely different with a typical beach vibe.
For diving in Red sea, probably the most well known spot is Sharm el-Sheikh, right at the most southern point of the Sinnai Peninsula. With its fancy resorts, great water quality and its easy access via its international airport, it can be a perfect option for diving. We didn’t picked it because we don’t like the resort town vibes.
The other option in Sinai peninsula with more laid back vibe is Dahab right next to the border with Jordan. With its famous blue hole, it has been a magnet for lots of backpacker and divers over years. However there are lots of dodgy diving package providers around the area so we weren’t sure if we want to pick that spot for diving or not. Especially when we decided to take a flight from Amman to Cairo, instead of travelling from Aqaba in Jordan to Taba close to Dahab in Egypt. If I had to pick between Sharm el-Sheikh and Dahab, and we wanted to only stay in Sinai peninsula in Egypt, we would have definitely picked Dahab. From cost point of view, there are definitely more affordable options there as well.
To get back to New Zealand, we had to get to Istanbul first, and because diving in red sea was the last leg of our journey in Egypt, I had to keep the best and most affordable flight options in mind too. Somehow I figured out flying to Istanbul directly from a town called Hurghada was way cheaper than even flight from Cairo to Istanbul which is the shorter flight with plenty more flight options on this route. That forced me to pick a diving spot close to Hurghada. Hurghada itself is a diving tourist destination which is more affordable than Sharm El Sheikh. It’s close to Aswan too which is the place that we ended up our Dahabiya trip.
I would say probably Hurghada can be a very good destination for diving in Red sea because of it’s affordable flights to Istanbul and the rest of Europe and availability of affordable and reasonable accommodation in the town and its access to plenty of good diving spots in the Red sea.
But I was looking for something more unique like a fishing village, by the sea. A quiet spot that we could enjoy the underwater world and be away from the hotels/resorts vibes. And I think if you look for something, you’ll find it eventually. On Padi Travel website, we found the list of sustainable diving options in Egypt and they were all what we were looking for. 20 km south of Marsa Alam, a small town half way between Hurghada and Sudan border, there’s a hidden gem. Marsa Shaghra is a small village with an amazing minimal sustainable accommodation options, just designed for professional divers and the students who are willing to take diving course s so if you are not into diving, you can not stay there. Everything is about diving there, isolated from everywhere and 20 km far from the only township of Marsa alam, it’s a great place to dive as many times as you can per day. Sitting next to two house reefs, you don’t even need to take a short boat ride to dive, you literally can walk into the water and start diving either the northern or the southern reef. It’s however close to the best diving spots of the red sea too. Below you can see the map of the famous Red Sea diving spots close to here.
Is diving cheap in Egypt? How much it costs?
Well the answer to the first question is no. Egypt is not a cheap diving destination. It is not even comparable to somewhere like Koh Tao in Thailand. It is cheaper than diving in new Zealand though, which is not a surprise, But it definitely worth the experience. For getting a Padi Open Water certificate, I would probably still prefer somewhere like Thailand, but having said that, we wanted to try diving in Egypt and stay somewhere unique. To stay in the location that I found, Red Sea Diving safari in Marsa Shaghra village, if we didn’t want to take the diving course and just do the diving, we should have had a diving certificate or take the course, so we had to pick the second option and decided to get our open Water Certificate there. Even if we could go recreational diving with a guide, it was becoming to expensive to rent our all the gear there so booking a course with accommodation with all inclusive meal option was the best package. Was it cheap? no definitely not. I think we paid 1200 Euro for both of us getting Padi Open water certificate, get our beach front tent accommodation for 5 days and having all the meals included. Actually it’s not that bad , now that I’m looking back into that from New Zealand costs perpective.
What we loved about Diving in Marsa Shagra:
Well it was a unique experience because of its perfect isolated location with interesting set up. The diving adventure was really good but I prefer to list what we loved about it.
Let’s start with accommodation first:
- First of all the way they set up a sustainable eco friendly accommodation was amazing. Everything was designed minimal but sufficient with the maximum level of comfort. Even the rubbish bins were out of clay and organic with divided bins for different wastes. Plastic water bottles were not allowed on site too. Pretty awesome for Egypt, especially after visiting Cairo which to me looks like a giant rubbish bin.
- It was absolutely clean. Even the share bathrooms were perfectly clean. They even had a different bins in girls showers/bathrooms that you could leave your leftover shampoo, sunscreen, etc before you leave and get on the plane.
- Restaurant was amazing. Plenty of food and option with long running hours which was perfect to get from an early morning dive and still be able to get breakfast. We honestly didn’t expect this quality of food at all.
- The vibe of the whole village was amazing. anyone in there just came there to dive. In the evening, sitting in front of our tent, we could see the stream of lights under the water from the divers taking the night dive on the house reefs, simply amazing. The same thing in the mornings,everyone was waking up super early to watch the sunrise and straight heading to the sea or to their yoga spot.
And here is the list of what we loved about the diving experience in Marsa Shaghra:
- The whole village was set up to provide the best diving experience. We are not experienced divers. We have just done it once in Thailand and comparing to the setting we have seen there, here was outstandingly organized and all the equipment and facilities had a very good standard.
- Lots of experienced divers were diving there and it was a good experience to be in touch with experience divers comparing to the touristic diving experiences.
- The location was outstanding for diving, We were even taking the pool lessons in the sea in shallow area and then were walking to the house reefs to take diving course.
- Visibility of the water and the marine life was outstanding. We had few poor visibility dives but generally speaking, you can always pick the right time to dive everyday to get the best of your dive.
What we didn't like about Diving in Marsa Shagra:
To be honest I don’t think there is any but there are few things to keep in mind for the first timers and everything else will be just fine. Let’s start with the location related ones first:
- Marsa Shagra is hidden without any signs on the main road. For us, as independent travelers getting on a taxi with a GPS point heading to Marsa Shagra, it took us ages to find it. Passing Marsa Alam toward south, there are quite a few resorts laid between the main road and the Red sea but after few kilometers they all disappeared and we were driving into the desert without any sign of civilization while getting closer to my GPS point. We finally managed to find it but just because I saw a glimpse of its white tents from the high point on the road.
- Getting to reception, we understood why. Pretty much no one really just drive there. 99% of the divers stay there, book the whole package including flight, accommodation and diving all together. After staying in the village for 5 days, we realized that we were the only ones just got there by a taxi, the rest of people were all arriving in large groups by bus and a tour leader. Even the receptionist got confused that how we booked it directly from Padi travel website and we had to wait for 10 to 15 minutes for them to check with Padi office to make sure that we paid in full and how we managed to book independently before giving us our tent.
- When we went to check out, they charged us extra 180 Euro for few things that it didn’t make sense but they said that it wasn’t covered in our original package. Apart from these two hiccups everything else was absolutely perfect in Marsa Shagara.
Ok let’s get to the list of things we didn’t like about diving there. Again, there was nothing wrong but there are few details that can make the whole experience much more pleasant.
- First thing that annoyed us was the tight schedule. Before I finalize the booking via Padi Travel I asked them about the number of days really required for finishing the open water course. Because I could select only two night stay plus open water course or 5 nights stay plus open water course and the website would let me proceed with both options. But we knew that for open water certificate, it should be a minimum number of days required due to the number of dives requirements. Finally someone got back to us and mentioned that 4 full days is enough so we booked 5 nights and 4 full days there.
- Getting there and after the first day in action, we realized we made a big mistake. The course was too tight for 4 days and a lot was involved. We were starting 6 am most days to go through shallow water training and then practicing the same skill in the reef, then getting back for a quick break and head for the second dive and sometimes even third one and when we were finally done we had lots of courses to take. Some in the class room and the rest through reading the open water course. This is how our nights were look like:
And here is how our free times looked like when we weren’t in the water:
- So if we had a chance to plan again, we would definitely plan to stay for 10 days there. In ten days we could finish our course without any stress and gave ourselve the oportunity to go for at least few fun dives after finishing the course. we didn’t even have one fun dive because we ran out of time. We were absolutely exhausted by end of it. And that’s why we don’t have even one single shot from the underwater world in Egypt!
- Again I think it was lack of information on Padi travel side not the Marsa Shagra diving center but it definitely made it intense. At the end of the day we really enjoyed the challenge. diving experience was amazing and allowed us to finish our 6 weeks in middle east with a unique experience.
Transportation:
Pulblic trasportation is not an option in this part of Egypt. That’s why we had to take a taxi from Aswan to Marsa Shagra which cost us 200 euro for 5 hours drive in really poor condition roads which wasn’t that bad especially after saving lots of money avoiding tourist train from Cairo to Luxor. Read about using public transport in Egypt like locals in this post.
On the way back, we got a very reasonable deal to fly from Hurghada to Istanbul with Pegasus air.
It costs both of us 500 USD for almost three hours flight to Istanbul which was cheaper that Turkish airline and Egypt air flights from Cairo to Istanbul. A taxi ride from Marsa Shaghra to Hurghada costs us 100 Euro for almost 4 hours drive which was a pretty good deal.
Everything was all good till we got to Hurghada airport 5 hours before our flight! Pegasus flight to Istanbul was scheduled for 3:30 am and we booked a taxi for 9:00 pm to get to Hurghada on time but while we were sorting out our paper work for the Padi certificate, the village receptionist told us that there’s some accident on the road and also it looks like there are some more security checkpoint before Hurghada so we asked your taxi driver to pick you up at 6:00 pm. So by the time we got to the airport it was 10:00. we were tired ( because we were diving on the same day too) and hungry and just wanted to get to the airport, eat something and relax but Hurghada airport was a unique one. I won’t say it was the worst that we’ve seen but it was definitely one of the worst airport experiences we had. First of all, they didn’t let us into the terminal because our flight was for 3:00 am!!! They were checking tickets right at the entrance of the building and were just allowing passengers for the next flight in.
Don’t even think for a second that it’s a busy airport, it is massive considering the number of flights getting in and out , so probably it was only three flights in total that night but the security level was insane. The same as the resorts in the area, even the flights are booked mainly for tour packages. Apart from us, all the rest of passengers were coming in large groups with buses and tour guides talk to the security and let their tourists in. we were again the only ones on our own with the early morning flight so they didn’t felt comfortable letting us in. Finally when they finally let us in, we went through intense security which we haven’t been through anywhere else including passing through the X ray without our shoes and even socks and then someone search us thoroughly again completely by hand and pretty much touches all our body!!!!!! ( At least they had male and female security officers) and finally they let us in this space.
Finally after hours of waiting they let us into another terminal where we could finally eat something before getting on our flight. The other good thing for Pegasus flight from Hurghada was the fact that the flight was going to land in Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen airport not the new airport and it is much closer to the city center.
we planned to stay for another three days in Istanbul before getting on the long flight back home. In the next post, we’ll visit a part of Istanbul that we never had a chance to visit in our last trips to Istanbul.
