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Daily Boat Diving Oonas Dive Club owns two boats. Diving from our boats takes place everyday. Both our boats are large day cruisers with spacious sun decks, saloon area, galley, toilets and purpose designed dive decks. The daily itinerary for our boats alternates between a wide variety of sites in the world famous Ras Mohammed National Park, the Straits of Tiran and other local sites up and down the South Sinai coast. We choose to keep our groups on our boats small which creates a more intimate and friendly environment between guides, guests & crews. Our guides try to avoid large numbers of boats and divers, which means our guests enjoy a more relaxed dive with a better chance of an encounter with larger marine life. A typical day out on one of our boats will start between 8 and 9 am. The first dive is made in the morning; a buffet lunch is then served followed by a further dive in the afternoon. We generally return at around 4pm for a spot of ‘après dive’ back at the Dive Centre.
Snorkelers and non-diving passengers Snorkelers and non-diving passengers are very welcome to join our dive boats, there is plenty of space to relax and our guides will make suggestions for the best snorkeling experience.
Diving Extras As well as our standard daily boat diving, there are many opportunities for additional diving activities such as third dives, visits to the wreck of the Dunraven, Night Dives either on our House Reef or from our boats or a trip to one of the most famous wrecks in the world, the SS Thistlegorm. You may also wish to consider hiring a private guide for the day for an even more personalised experience.
Shore Diving As an alternative to diving on our boats or especially if you wish to ease yourself gently into diving in the Red Sea we offer several options for diving from the shore. A beach check dive is a great way to check out your equipment and get your weighting and buoyancy skills fine tuned especially if you haven’t been diving for a little while. Our house reef provides a wonderful environment for a relaxing beach dive with a wide variety of marine life and different habitats. Shore diving excursions can also be arranged to Dahab or to the Nabq National Park to explore sites which cannot be accessed by our daily boats.
Equipment Hiring your diving equipment makes a good alternative to having to pay those excess luggage fees imposed by many airlines. We have a wide range of high quality equipment for hire. Individual items can be hired separately, or you can opt for full equipment hire which allows for all your diving needs. Additional accessories are also available such as diving computers, compasses and torches.
Tanks Our diving prices allow for 12 litre air tanks, but if you wish to enhance your diving experience by using 15 litre or Nitrox tanks, please let us know and we will ensure they are available for you.
N.B. All our tanks allow for either DIN or A-clamp regulators.
Ras Mohammed National Park: On the very tip of the Sinai, where the Gulf of Aqaba and the Gulf of Suez meet with the main body of the Red Sea, there is a high cliff wall. It is on this cliff that it is said you can see the outline of the Prophet Mohammed's face looking south over the Red Sea. This is where the Sinai's oldest National Park takes its name. Established in 1983 the Park covers all of the land starting from the tip of the Sinai all the way north to Sharm el Sheikhs main port, and all the waters along the coastline. There are several dive sites in the Park, which vary from steep wall dives and fast currents, to mild drift dives past fabulous coral pinnacles and gardens. The most famous of the Parks dive sites is Shark and Yolanda Reef. Here, the variety of the Parks dive sites are combined to create a dive that is hard to beat. Shark Reef is a wall that drops 800m, with crystal blue water that, during the height of summer, fill with thousands of schooling Snapper and Barracuda, which are hunted by marauding Sharks. It sits on the tip of the Sinai next to Yolanda Reef, which takes its name from a ship that hit the reef and sank in the early ‘80s. Around the outer edge of Yolanda is a beautiful coral garden full of vibrant soft corals and thousands of Anthia. To the west of Yolanda, in the shallows, is what remains of the shipwreck which slid further into the deep after sinking. Linking Shark and Yolanda together is a sandy slope, which runs up from the depths onto a shallow plateau between the two reefs and the shore. A view of Shark and Yolanda Reef from the top of Ras Mohammed cliff face
The Straits of Tiran: The eastern arm of the Red Sea, which separates the Sinai from Saudi Arabia, is known as the Gulf of Aqaba. It is a huge rift in the sea floor that plunges down thousands of meters into the deep. At the mouth of the gulf is Tiran Island, and it is between Tiran Island and the Sinai that the Straits of Tiran are located. The Straits consist of four reefs named Gordon, Thomas, Woodhouse and Jackson after the British Cartographers that first mapped the area. These four reefs rise up from the deep all the way to the surface, and are swept daily by fierce currents that occur as the waters from the Gulf flow back and forth through the narrow channel. It is these currents that bring nutrients to corals of the four reefs, and it is the abundance of reef fish that bring in the pelagic fish such as Snappers, Tuna and Barracuda, and the Sharks. White-tip, Grey Reef, Silver-tip, Leopard, Thresher, Tiger and schooling Hammerhead sharks can be found cruising around the walls and across the beautiful deep water coral gardens of these reefs. Drift diving is the best way to see these reefs but knowledge of the currents ebbs and flows are essential. As the reefs are located off shore they are subjected to the swells of the open seas. Large waves roll down from the north and break along the northern and western walls of the reefs. On rough days only the sheltered 'inside' of the reefs can be dived. And it is the ‘inside’ of the four reefs that face east and can get the most sunlight. Beautiful, steep coral walls can be found on Woodhouse, the longest of the reefs, and Jackson at the northern end of Straits. While Gordon Reef at the southern end offers a wide coral plateau. Thomas Reef, the smallest of the reefs, has a beautiful deep-water coral garden, a canyon for the technical recreational divers, and steep walls on all sides. On calm days daily dive boats can access the 'outside' of the reefs which are generally steep craggy walls with small caves and overhangs. Large soft corals and Gorgonians fan corals hang out on the walls catching the light and passing nutrients in the water, and because the outer walls of the reefs are less frequently visited by divers there is more chance of finding the elusive sharks. |
Join us on one of our spacious day cruisers for our Red Sea daily diving itinerary. All our boats have large sundecks, saloon, galley, toilets and purpose designed dive decks. A day of diving usually comprises two dives with lunch in between. Optional third dives are also available.
