Let me tell you about the first time a friend of mine put his face in the Red Sea. He was no diver. He was the sort of man who considers the hotel pool an act of daring. They strapped a tank to his back, fed him a few promises, and tipped him off the boat. Three minutes later he came up wearing a grin that no towel could remove. That grin has a name among divers. We call it the saltwater grin, and Egypt hands them out for free.
So if you are looking at Egypt and wondering whether the fuss is earned, allow me to report, with my hand on my heart and my ears still ringing from the flight, that it is.
Why a body keeps coming back
The Red Sea is the headline act and it knows it. The water runs clear enough to read your fortune in, with visibility from 15 to 70 meters (50 to 230 feet). On a good day you spot the reef before the reef spots you. The temperature loiters between 21 and 30 C (70 to 86 F), warm enough that a person forgets to complain, which for a diver is practically a religious experience. The air swings from 21 to 40 C (70 to 104 F), and the north turns a touch chilly come winter, though never enough to send you packing. The plain fact is you can dive here in any month that owns a name.
What it is actually like down there (for the landlubbers)
If you have never dived, here is the honest version. You sink slowly, you breathe like a calm steam engine, and the noise of the world switches off. Fish that paid you no mind on the boat now swim up to inspect your mask, unimpressed. A turtle drifts by with the air of a creature who has nowhere to be and is in no hurry to get there. You will want to shout about it, which is unwise with a regulator in your mouth, so you settle for pointing and making muffled dolphin sounds at your buddy. Everybody does it. Nobody admits it.
A few diver truths, told plainly
Equalize your ears early and often, or they will file a formal complaint at about six meters. Do your buddy check even though you are sure you packed everything, because sure is how people end up bobbing on the surface without a weight belt. Speaking of weights, every new diver either floats like a cork or sinks like a dropped anchor on the first go. This is tradition. Your dive guide has seen it a thousand times and will fix it without laughing, mostly.
And the safety stop, those three minutes hanging at five meters while your computer counts down, will feel longer than a dentist appointment. Endure it anyway. The reef is the reward. The grin is the receipt.
Where to do your diving
Two stretches of country run the business: the Red Sea Coast and the Sinai Peninsula.
Red Sea Coast
This is the popular favorite, and popularity, as usual, arrives with company. The reefs about Hurghada can grow crowded enough to charge rent, so ask your dive center for the quiet corners they keep to themselves. The veterans return season after season, and veterans are seldom wrong about such matters.
Sinai Peninsula
The southern Sinai is the stretch the postcards quarrel over. Ras Mohammed has been a national park since 1983, a fact I confirmed twice, my memory being an unreliable witness. The reefs have enjoyed the quiet ever since. If you want water the crowds have not yet trampled, point your fins this way.
Fit for greenhorn and old hand alike
Egypt is generous with beginners and experts both. If you are new to the business, the local centers will train you, guide you, and turn a nervous landlubber into a passable diver before the week is out. I have watched it happen to worse candidates than you, and they lived to brag about it at dinner.
A word on planning, cheaply given
Settle your dates early and arrange your dive center before you ever leave home. The traveler who plans ahead is a smug creature by his third dive, and he has earned the right to be.
You will find verified dive centers in Egypt on Live is Dive. Compare them, then write to the center direct. No middleman, no commission, and nobody standing between you and the water but your own good sense.
Photos via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY: Red Sea reef by dronepicr; anemonefish by Tim Sheerman-Chase; dive boat by NeilsPhotography; hawksbill turtle by Derek Keats.