Red Sea diving in Makadi Bay, Hurghada, Egypt, November 17-22, 2017

We went to Egypt to dive and that is all we did on this trip, our first to the Red Sea. In six days, we did 16 dives. 10 dives were by boat, and 6 were shore dives on the house reef:

Dive 1 - Abu Hashish Lagoon, Boat (check dive)
Dive 2 - Royal Garden, Boat
Dive 3 - House Reef, Shore (Guided)
Dive 4 - House Reef, Shore (Unguided)
Dive 5 - Sharm el Arab, Boat
Dive 6 - Abu Hashish Drift, Boat
Dive 7 - House Reef, Shore (Unguided)
Dive 8 - Gota Abu Makadi, Boat
Dive 9 - Torfa, Boat
Dive 10 - House Reef / Relittino, Shore (Unguided compass dive)
Dive 11 -  Cleopatra, Boat
Dive 12 - Torfa, Boat
Dive 13 - House Reef, Shore (Unguided)
Dive 14 - Gota Abu Makadi, Boat
Dive 15 - Middle Makadi, Boat
Dive 16 - House Reef, Shore (Unguided)

We dove with iDive at their Makadi Bay shop (they have 4) and couldn't have been happier with our choice. Here's the link to my TripAdvisor review. The only disappointment was that we couldn't do any Night Dives because Egyptian security have suspended all night diving in the area at the moment.

Along with the colourful, healthy coral, the star of this trip was all the new (to us) and varied sea life. We spotted many fish for the first time: cuttlefish, unicornfish (with the brow protusions), bird wrasse (that looked like mini dolphins to me), rock fish, scorpion fish, 2 new types of nudibranch, broomtail wrasse, blue-spotted rays, picasso triggerfish, titan triggerfish, sailfin tangs, pipefish, the red klunzinger's wrasse, bluegreen chromis and so many more. I loved looking up at coral heads and seeing them wreathed in a cloud of orange anthias - an iconic Red Sea image to me. And yes, we saw lots of fabulous clownfish (twobar anemonefish) in their anemones, often with babies. They were all very bold and stood their ground as we took a good look.

We will definitely go back to the Red Sea to dive, and might even squeeze in some Egyptian culture next time.

Firsts: First Red Sea dive, first compass dive.