Hamata & Wadi Lahami · Egypt · Coral garden · Reef
Shaab Ini
A west side packed with hard- and soft-coral blocks
Area photo: Derek Keats · CC BY 2.0
Shaab Ini is a hard-coral garden standing on a sandy bottom, with a maximum depth of 27 m and a west side dense with hard- and soft-coral blocks. It is normally run as the second dive of a Sha'ab Claudio day, which makes it the reef most divers here meet at the end of an afternoon rather than a trip booked on its own.
Where it is and how deep
24.2263° N, 35.4362° EPublished position for this site.
The dive
Most days this is dive two, after Sha'ab Claudio in the morning. The reef is a hard-coral garden standing on sand, and the sand is what gives the dive its shape: you follow the edge of the coral with the bottom at 27 m below you, then work back up onto the garden as the dive goes on and the shallow coral takes over.
The west side is where the reef is densest, with blocks of hard and soft coral packed together and a wide range of different hard corals among them. Whitetip reef sharks pass along the reef, blue-spotted stingrays sit out on the sand, and moray eels, scorpionfish, lionfish, pufferfish and nudibranchs fill in the small stuff on the coral itself.
Marine life and season
- Reef sharks
- Stingrays
- Macro critters
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fair | Fair | Good | Good | Prime | Prime | Prime | Prime | Prime | Prime | Good | Fair |
Season follows Hamata & Wadi Lahami: May to October is the calm window, with much less wind; diving runs all year, but sea state is wind-driven and can reroute a day.
Sources
- Shaab Ini - Scubago — Scubago
- Fury Shoal - Wikivoyage (German) — Wikivoyage
More dive sites in Hamata & Wadi Lahami
Reef
Swim-throughs and pinnacles from 10 metres, diveable year-round.
Pinnacle
Six coral towers rising from 22 m to the surface
The Fury Shoals' longest reef, with a resident spinner-dolphin pod
A walk-in reef with a 10-minute block and a turtle seagrass meadow
Reef
Coral blocks and small caves over sand at 18 m
Pinnacle
An anemone field from 2 m down to the bottom at 17 m
An anemone city at 12 m, on a reef that runs down to 40 m
Reef
A large coral garden on the west side, 17 m at its deepest
Similar dives elsewhere
Coral garden to 25 m, a quarter of an hour south of the marina
Shared entrance with the Canyon, then a slow run south
Hole-in-the-roof entry to coral blocks rising from 10 to 40 m to the surface
Anthias clouds thick enough to lose sight of your buddy