St John's Reefs · Egypt · Wall · Cave & cavern
Gota Soraya
Overhangs on the southern wall and a cavern you enter at 10 m
Area photo: Derek Keats · CC BY 2.0
Gota Soraya is a small steep-walled reef near the centre of the St John's cluster, breaking the surface and running slightly deeper than neighbouring Gota Kebir. Gorgonians and sea whips dominate the deep face while juvenile fish and soft corals carpet the shallows, and the southern side is cut with overhangs and a cavern you can enter at 10 metres.
Also known as Gota Soghayr, Gota Sogyara.
Where it is and how deep
23.4296° N, 35.9033° EApproximate position — the dashed circle shows where the site lies; your operator's briefing has the mooring.
The dive
The reef is small and breaks the surface, so you go in on it rather than swim to it, and the dive is a wall dive from the start. The face falls away steeply from the shallows and the deep is where the gorgonians and sea whips are, standing off the rock and thinning out as you work back up. Divers log this site deeper than its neighbour Gota Kebir, most commonly between the high twenties and the high thirties of metres, so set your turn depth before you drop in.
Save the southern side for the second half of the dive. That is where the overhangs run one after another along the face, and where a cavern opens in the shallows that you can swim into at 10 metres — a lit, open feature rather than anything needing a line. Napoleon wrasse drift at the edge of visibility along the way, and groups of bumphead parrotfish work across the flats above the wall.
Come shallow with time in hand. Juvenile fish and soft corals carpet the reef top here, so the last part of the dive and the safety stop are better spent over the coral than hanging in the blue. Current has been logged anywhere from slack to around two knots, so agree with the guide which way you will turn before you go in rather than working it out on the wall.
Marine life and season
- Napoleon wrasse
- Reef fish swarms
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fair | Fair | Good | Prime | Prime | Prime | Good | Good | Prime | Prime | Good | Fair |
Season follows St John's Reefs: Mar–Jun and Sep–Nov are the settled windows; midsummer is very hot and winter northerlies make the long crossing uncomfortable.
Know before you go
- The wall falls away steeply with no plateau to catch you — fix a maximum depth topside and watch the computer along the face.
- Current on the site runs from slack to around two knots, so check the direction first and swim into it rather than drifting off a small reef.
Dive videos
Egypt Diving: Gota Soraya · JulianDocumentary on YouTube
Questions divers ask
How deep is Gota Soraya?+
It is a steep-walled reef and logged dives here mostly run between about 18 and 38 metres, with a typical profile working the wall to around 30 metres. The one fixed shallow feature is the cavern you enter at 10 metres.
What is there to see at Gota Soraya?+
Gorgonians and sea whips on the deep face, soft corals and juvenile fish carpeting the shallows, napoleon wrasse along the wall and groups of bumphead parrotfish over the flats above it, plus overhangs and a cavern on the southern side.
Sources
- St. John's Diving, Southern Red Sea - Egypt — Dive The World
- St. John's - Best Red Sea Liveaboard Diving In Southern Egypt — No Troubles Just Bubbles
- Gota Soraya @ Saint John's Reef — dive site details — scubadiving.place
- OpenStreetMap Nominatim search: Gota Soraya — OpenStreetMap
More dive sites in St John's Reefs
A maze of coral columns down to sand at 20 m
Short caverns at 7 m under an overnight mooring
Tunnels and fissures cut into an 840 m reef block
Grey reefs and hammerheads off an exposed pinnacle
Pinnacle
A ledge at 20–35 m circling a current-swept habili
Cave & cavern
Sunlight falling through cracks in the cavern roof at 6-10 m
Similar dives elsewhere
No road in — a 50-minute boat ride to a fan-coral drop-off
A vertical wall that drops to 90 m before it slopes
Wide soft-coral overhangs under table corals along a 4 km back reef
Cousteau's diving-saucer hangar still on the sand at 13 m