Marsa Alam & Fury Shoals

Diving here spreads along a long coastal strip rather than running out of one harbour, so the shape of a day depends mostly on where you sleep. Many camps and resorts sit on their own stretch of fringing reef, and a large share of dives start as a walk down the beach or the jetty steps and a swim out across a sand channel, which makes unhurried afternoon dives and night dives easy to fit in without booking anything. The offshore reefs are day-boat work instead: an early start, a run out from the nearest harbour, and two dives before the wind gets up.

The coast is fringing reef cut at intervals by marsas, drowned wadi mouths flooded by rising sea level and now sheltered bays of sand and seagrass with simple entries. That inshore world is shallow and forgiving. Further out the reef breaks into detached shoals and the character changes: broad coral labyrinths whose swim-throughs are mostly open, daylit caverns a few metres down rather than true caves, and isolated ridges standing in deep water, dived as a wall with a plateau at either end, where the drop is usually made upcurrent of the reef.

Two of the signature encounters are managed rather than casual. The dolphin lagoon is zoned under marine-park rules, with a core resting area closed to visitors, separate snorkelling and diving zones outside it, a limit on boats and a fee collected before departure, so the meeting is rationed and supervised. At the seagrass bay the rules sit lighter but the briefing is the same: keep your distance, stay out of the animal's path to the surface, and do not follow it for a photograph.

It suits divers who want large animals without giving up easy diving, since the shallow bays stay within reach of a snorkelling partner while the offshore plateaus sit deep enough to cut no-decompression time short and reward a steady air consumption in moving water. Photographers do well because so much of the interest sits in shallow, well-lit water. The Red Sea's best-known wrecks lie well to the north, and anyone whose trip hinges on one exposed offshore reef should keep spare days, because wind closes it for a stretch at a time.