Over the coming months we will focus on dive areas to give you the low down from our guides of whats hot and what they believe is in store for you this season.  We are starting the Spotlight series with one of our favourite areas which our guides believe will be hot in 2019 – Daedalus

Spotlight:  Daedalus Reef, Southern Red Sea

Daedalus Reef is situated in the deep south of the Egyptian Red Sea. Its’ closest landmark is Marsa Alam -approximately 90 km away. The only visitors to the reef are liveaboard vessels due to its romote location. The reef is 400m long and 100m wide which we believe would take about 5 hours to circle!

At the center of the reef is an artificial island with a lighthouse which was built in 1863. There is a chance to visit the lighthouse which makes for some great photo opportunities during the trips.

Type of Diving:

Dives are generally done by zodiac but the southern plateau can easily be dived from the back of the boat depending on currents. Currents range from zero to gentle drift but are strong during full moon.

Daedalus offers a good mix of blue water diving and wall diving.

What you can see:

Daedalus’ vertical walls drop steeply into the depths of the Red Sea.  The dramatic walls densly covered with brightly coloured soft corals provide very interesting dives due to the diversity of marine life:  Overgrown Gorgonian Fan Forests; a city of anemones; and centuries old porites corals.

Pelagics:
Schooling Hammerheads, Oceanic White Tips, Silky Sharks, Manta Rays and occasionally Thresher sharks

Big Stuff:
Tuna, Green Turtles, Napoleon Wrasse, Giant Trevally, Black Snapper

Smaller Stuff:
Anemone and our beloved Nemo, Schools of Goat fish, Nudibranchs, Fuisiliers

Our guides verdict:

Last season from the beginning the sharks unusually stayed at a deeper depth.  Over the past month numbers of sharks have been seen in recreational dive depth.  This is a big indication of a hot shark season this year.  Our oldest guide – Reda – who as monitored the shark action Daedalus for too many years to remember says ‘when we have the sharks deep one year the following year they seem to stay shallow.  I am really looking forward to getting some great dives in this season at Daedalus.  Diving with schooling hammerheads is one of my favourite dive experiences’.