Diving At El Gouna, The Red Sea's Premier Leisure Destination
EL GOUNA, Egypt, August 31, 2005. Located directly on the Egyptian Red Sea and referred to as the Red Sea's Premier Leisure Destination, El Gouna is renowned for offering some of the world's best diving opportunities. Providing nine dive centres located throughout the resort, El Gouna offers diving experiences for all levels.
Spanning the straights of Gobal Island in the north to El Fanadir in the south, around 50 dive sites are accessible by spacious and comfortable day boats, which depart daily from El Gouna. Between one and two hours away are dive sites ranging from shallow coral gardens, such as Abu Galawa and Shaab el Erg, to wall diving sites, such as Umm Gamar and Blind Reef. Similarly, Shaab El Erg is a large horseshoe shaped reef with dozens of small ergs or coral heads within its crescent, while Poseidon's Garden is a safe shallow dive, offering many pristine coral heads to explore. The protected nature of all these dive sites allows widespread interaction with the abundance of marine life which can be found around the reefs, caves and wrecks. Many types of fish species frequent the areas but so too do wild dolphins. Saab El Erg offers a site called Dolphin House Reef, where dolphins are particularly known to feed, making sightings possible but still not guaranteed.
El Gouna is also ideally positioned to dive some of the finest wrecks in the Red Sea, often more so than some of its more developed neighbour destinations. Abu Nuhas, only 1 1/2 hours away, is a ship graveyard containing the wrecks of Giannis D, Carnatic, Kimon M and Chrisoula K. The SS Thistlegorm (2 1/2 hours away) was a 126 meter long and 17.5 meter wide merchant vessel commandeered by the navy during World War II. In the early hours of 6th October 1941, she was hit by two German bombers. Rediscovered in the early 90's, sitting upright at 30 metres, she has become one of the best wrecks in the Red Sea. Her holds are easily accessible showing the full range of cargo, which includes ammunition, trucks, motorbikes, armoured vehicles, plane wings and engines, trains and tenders, Wellington boots and waders. All wrecks are around 100 metres in length and found between five and 28 meters below the surface. The great coral life in the area also ensures there to be lots of schooling fish around the wrecks.
A relatively new resort destination, El Gouna retains the fine balance of dive numbers compared to the number of dive sites available. Most of the dive sites are still virgin and remain pristine, undisturbed and ready to be discovered.
The clear, warm water, together with the heated teaching pools and calm local reefs, make El Gouna an excellent location to begin a diving career. All of the dive schools offer PADI courses from entry level and beyond, with many also offering specially tailored courses for children; such as PADI bubble maker, junior scuba diving and the junior open water course and snorkelling programme. For more experienced divers, a test is first required to prove competency and then courses including everything from open water and technical diving, to professional level instructor development courses, are available.
El Gouna has also established 'Green Gouna', a community initiative that attracts broad support from all the dive centres and hotels in El Gouna. Its main target is to establish El Gouna as an eco-tourism destination but also to educate staff, visitors and residents alike through sets of basic rules. The principle is to ensure the conservation of flora and fauna on land and at sea, while also monitoring surrounding water, air and land pollution.
Such diversity in the diving experiences at El Gouna is what contributes to its diving renowned reputation. Whatever a person's diving experience, El Gouna offers a range of facilities, courses, safaris and dive excursions for all to enjoy. The year round sunshine, combined with the resort's other sport, hotel and leisure opportunities, are together what earned El Gouna the Premier Leisure Destination reputation it deserves.
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