Location: Egypt / St. John’s
Description: Reef / Coral Garden
Depths: 60+ metres

Small Gota is a small circular shaped reef. Deep walls drop away vertically on all sides into the abyss and the upper reef is absolutely covered in colourful soft coral. Long pink and red whip corals stretch out into the blue and there are some magnificent gorgonian fan corals between 20 and 30m. The upper 20 metres of this reef is teeming with small marine life of all descriptions and tuna and trevallie cruise past, looking for any opportunity of a meal.

Large shoals of blue lunar fusiliers venture cautiously away from the reef only to dart back in tight formation at the first sign of danger. A whole family of humphead napoleon wrasse swim majestically around the reef perimeter. Current normally runs from north to south so if your dive boat is equipped with a zodiac or RIB the best option by far is to get dropped at the northern most tip of the reef and then spend up to an hour cruising with any current or gently swimming back to your boat mooring on the south side.

Finishing the dive in the top few meters of water, there are small fissures in the reef which are well worth exploring during your safety stops.

New coral reef maps published by Cassiopeiasafari! We are always looking at ways to improve our blog and having taken note of your comments over the past few months, we have drawn up 11 new dive site maps of our most favourite diving Wrecks and Reefs in Egypt. Please take a look and let us know what you think.

Please have a click around and let us know what you would like to see more of by leaving a comment on this post. The Wrecks and Reefs itinerary is operated by some of our most luxurious Red Sea Liveaboards including M/Y Cassiopeia and M/Y Andromeda.

For more information about these boats or how to book your next diving adventure, please contact us!

Location: Egypt / Marsa Alam / Fury Shoals
Description: Reef / Coral garden / Caves
Depths: 12 – 24 meters

Sha’ab Claudia (sometimes known as Sha’ab Claude) is a small reef with lots of disturbed water at the surface and can have quite large swells in the top 5m of water. The west side of the reef has lovely hard coral formations, with stony and boulder corals cascading down to 20m like an underwater waterfall. Current will normally run from north to south and boats usually moor on the more sheltered south side, although surface conditions can still be rocky on the boat.

There are some reef fragments to the west which also have great hard coral, and yet more reef pieces to the south. Although the southern pieces are sparser in terms of coral growth there is some nice small marine life and in the top 5 metres the reef is densely populated with antheas.