Our first Hurghada site guide covered five names every guide mentions: El Fanadir, Shaab Abu Nugar, Umm Gamaar, Carless Reef, Fanous East, Erg Abu Ramada and Ras Disha. Hurghada has far more than that. Here are the other seventeen, with the same depth and difficulty data we publish for every site.
Easy sites — good any day
Abu Hashish
6–60 m · easy · 90 minutes. An island wrapped in reef on a sandy plateau, with a sheltered lagoon that doubles as a training area. Bigfin reef squid hover here in formation, and hooded cuttlefish are a regular sighting.
Banana Reef
14–22 m · easy · 90 minutes. A crescent-shaped reef enclosing a coral garden and two pinnacles smothered in soft coral. An "anemone city" at 14 metres houses hundreds of anemonefish.
El Erug
12–14 m · easy · 60 minutes. Several species of moray eel and typical Red Sea reef fish around every pinnacle — an unpretentious, reliable site.
Fanous West
0–14 m · easy · 30 minutes. Triggerfish nesting in August–September, giant moray eels, silversides hunted by jackfish. One of the closest sites to the marina.
Hamda (Stone Beach)
0–50 m · easy · 70 minutes. A giant green lettuce coral at 30 metres, coral towers with swim-throughs — a site with real range from shallow to deep in one dive.
Gota Abu Ramada (The Aquarium)
0–40 m · easy · 75 minutes. Huge schools of bannerfish and masked butterflyfish, cascading brain corals and grottoes — the name is not an exaggeration.
South Abu Ramada
5–35 m · easy · 80 minutes. A safari-boat wreck at just 5 metres alongside garden eels and butterflyfish schools — see our Hurghada wreck diving guide.
Shaab Eshta
7–12 m · easy · 45 minutes. Barracuda hovering in the channel, scorpionfish and parrotfish, gobies working the sand.
Shaab Petra
8–15 m · easy · 45 minutes. A turtle-shaped giant brain coral as the landmark, a glassfish cavern with a resident grouper.
Shaab Sabina
8–14 m · easy · 90 minutes. A dramatic labyrinth of coral ridges and a hard-coral garden in genuinely superb condition.
Turft El Shahed
8–20 m · easy · 90 minutes. Soft-coral pinnacles, eagle rays fairly common, crocodilefish and moses sole tucked under table corals.
Moderate sites
Erg Somaya
5–60 m · moderate · 75 minutes. Barracuda, snapper, jackfish and tuna over coral towers thick with anthias and butterflyfish.
North Umm Gamaar
0–40 m · moderate · 90 minutes. Big schools of anthias, snapper and sweetlips, every common Red Sea butterflyfish species you can name.
Shabruhr Umm Gamaar
15–30 m · moderate · 90 minutes. Grey reef sharks in the afternoons with some luck, and the remains of an army supply-ship wreck.
Hard sites — for experienced divers
El Minya Wreck
17–32 m · hard · 10 minutes. A 1970 minesweeper wreck ten minutes from the harbour — full detail in our wreck diving guide.
Erg Sabina
10–12 m · easy on paper, current-dependent · 90 minutes. Turtles, eagle rays, napoleon wrasse and clouds of glassfish.
North Abu Ramada
20–100 m · hard · 80 minutes. Giant barracuda, bigeye trevally, yellowfin tuna and squadrons of eagle rays up to a dozen strong. The deepest wall on this list — for advanced divers only.
Pick a site, then pick the day
Full briefings for every site — including the original five — are on our dive site pages. Book the day that visits the sites you want from our Hurghada trip catalogue, or ask your guide on the morning; conditions decide the plan more often than a printed schedule does.
Which of these sites suits a first dive after certification?
Start with the easy group: Fanous West or El Erug are both close, sheltered and shallow enough to rebuild confidence gently. Save North Abu Ramada and the deeper end of Erg Somaya for once you are comfortable at 20 metres or more with some current running.
Do I need Advanced Open Water for any of these?
Only for the hard-rated sites — El Minya Wreck and North Abu Ramada specifically, both of which combine depth with current. Every easy and moderate site on this list is open to a certified Open Water diver with a guide.
