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There are many levels and many specialized courses for who are interested in scuba diving. The major scuba diving levels are Open Water, Advanced Open Water, Rescue Diver, Dive Master, Assistant Instructor and finally an Instructor. Each level has its benefits first the Open Water diver which is learning the basics of scuba diving, including equipment and techniques, limited Water Dives Practice skills, in a pool or a very clear shallow beach location. Four actual scuba dives in a typical dive environment.

Advanced Open Water, which improving dive skills and explore specialized dive activities. Five dives (Two required dives: deep and navigation, plus any three from the many special activities available)

Rescue diver, Successful completion of Emergency First Response or a certified program in CPR and first aid within the past two years. Learn skills that help you perform diver assists and rescues, manage dive accident situations and render first aid. Confined Water Dives Not required, but many instructors include one practice session before heading to open water. Open Water training Master the training exercises.

Dive Master, Work with local dive centers, on live-aboard dive boats, yachts and at exotic resort locations. Assist Instructors with scuba classes. Lead Scuba Divers on guided dive tours. Teach and certify Skin Divers. Conduct Scuba Review programs for certified divers. Conduct Discover Local Diving orientations. Teach The Digital Underwater Photographer Specialty Course after successfully completing a Digital Underwater Specialty Instructor Training Course. Teach Emergency First Response CPR and First Aid programs after completing the Emergency First Response instructor training program.

Assistant Instructor, Teach knowledge development (classroom) presentations (under the indirect supervision of an Instructor). Evaluate Open Water Diver surface skills (under the indirect supervision of an Instructor). Teach the Peak Performance Buoyancy Specialty course. Teach the Project AWARE Specialty course. Conduct Discover Scuba experiences. Teach Emergency First Response courses after successfully completing the Emergency First Response Instructor Course.

Now you’re an Instructor.

source PADI.com

Fishes, Reptiles and Mammals

Many famous dive sites with large tame fishes, many large bays with high fish diversity. There are sharks, large number of snappers and schools of jack fish in Shark reef. Many Anemone City (Nemo) which I personally admire also there are Garden eels. Many of Blue spotted stingray in the Namaa bay area which is very famous of its spines. Saw once an Eagle Ray very cute actually.

Loads of Giant moray also in Namaa Bay and in Ras Mohammed. Spotted many rare fish very beautiful like Filamented devilfish aka Red Sea Walkman, scorpion fish very hard to spot as it has the same shape of the corals and also Stonefish. Several groupers and common fish like lionfish which is a poisonous fish if you touched its fins which are like spines.

Red Sea racoon Butterflyfish

Numerous numbers of the most colorful coral reef fish’s Butterfly fish which travel especially in pairs, and characterized by their disc-like body covered with scales. Angelfish resemble butterfly fish and share their splendid colors the one I personally admire is the yellowbar angelfish. Gobies are small elongate blunt-headed fishes with large mouth with pointed teeth, pelvic fins close together; the only one I saw is the Red sea shrimp goby. Many other huge selections of Barracudas, Masked puffer, Trigger fish, Yellowspotted burrfish, the very famous Sea turtle.

Source: Coral Reef Guide

Red Sea Walkman

Why dive?

You probably wonder why scuba diving is adventures, as you never know what you are going to see for example a weird fish or even when you see a shark is the most wonderful thing you can see, being adventures is a part of the life challenges and even taking risk for something you really love.

When I scuba dive I feel as if aim flying in another planet with weird, colorful and wonderful creatures that live under the sea and they have homes and they go places just like the movie A Sharks tale!!! I swear this is what I really love about scuba diving. Sometimes if there is a current it can drift you and carry you as if you were being carried by someone it’s really exciting. People must try it even only once just for the sake of adventure.

The Equipment

While scuba diving there is a lot of equipment is required. The basics equipment like masks which has six features to make sure before buying any mask which are first to make sure it’s a tempered glass lens plate. Second comfortable skirt with close fit against your face and good seal. Third, nose or finger pockets. Forth low profile the lower the profile the less air you need to equalize. Fifth adjustable strap that can be locked in place. And last wide field of vision.

Snorkels must not be very long, must be designed with smooth, rounded bends and have a large bore. Fins at first they must be very comfortable, as if you got a cramp underwater it’s easily wore off but it can always come again and ruin your whole dive. There are 2 types the Adjustable Heel Fins which requires a boot and to put it in the pocket and the Full Foot should fit comfortably.

Then the BCD (buoyancy control device) which is an expandable bladder that you inflate or deflate to regulate your buoyancy, it requires adjustment for a proper fit not too tight or not too loose. The tanks and the valves usually you take them from the diving center you are diving with.

The regulator makes it possible to use the air in your tank. It reduces the scuba tank’s high pressure air to match the surrounding water pressure and it delivers air only when you inhale. The regulator is divided into four parts the first stage which connect it with the tank, the second stage which is the part you put in your mouth to inhale, an alternate air source a second one if someone ran out of air so you have an extra source for him and the pressure gauge which reads how much air you have in the tank and your depth underwater.

Dive site

The great things about diving that visiting a lot of sites for many times you discover something new every time. Especially in Sharm El Sheikh, there are a lot of diving sites which divers can really enjoy. There are many areas I dived in, like Straits of Tiran which rank one of the finest attraction sites in the Red Sea which includes five major reefs there Jackson, Woodhouse, Thomson, Gordon, and Ras Nasrani which is the farther one and it is 9km north of Na’ama Bay.

Actually I never dived in Ras Nasrani before but I hear it’s very beautiful down there. The one I really like is the back of Jackson reef which there I spotted a white tip shark was a baby one but at least it counts as a shark right!!!!. Then there are the gardens which are just north Na’ama Bay.

There are Near Garden, Middle Garden, and the Far Garden. The best one is the Middle Garden as there is a small tunnel in front of the Savoy hotel just by the canyon. Na’ama Bay the most area I dived in. Ras Um Sid and the Temple which also a nice place to dive in where there you can see a lot of two-handled clay vessels (amphoras) a ship bearing a cargo there.

The famous Ras Mohammed where there is a lot of reefs like Jack Fish Alley, Yolanda, and Shark Reef where there I spotted my very first shark very exciting really. My first deep dive I did was in Ras Katy I went 30m and found a watch, a bracelet and a mouth piece for the snorkel.

Meeting friends

The easiest part of diving is meeting people. When I took my first Open Water diving course, I asked for an English instructor her name was Sarah Woodford when I started my course she told me has been living in Sharm El Sheikh for 12 years actually I was surprised I never thought of foreigners living in our country with this passion I saw in her.

I was teamed up with 4 English and 1 from Russia; they were very friendly and very nice people. We still email each other till now. It’s a very nice thing that you have friends from other cultures just to share ideas and personalities.


In my second course the Advanced Open Water I was with 2 lovely couple also from England. Lynn and Mark were very nice people they actually offered me to visit them in England over the summer. We even went out all of us in Sharm, talking about our diving experience and that they love Egypt very much and they are coming again in the New Year for more diving experience.

Wreck Dive

Wreck diving is one of the most adventurous dive anyone could do. My first wreck dive was in August of summer 2007 after I finished my third course, my instructor Linda M convinced me before going back to Cairo to go on a wreck dive as my final dive to Dunraven in the Red Sea. The Dunraven was used to transport spices and timber, went down in March 1876 during a trip from Bombay to Newcastle.

This wreck was discovered in 1979, and then it became one of the best diving sites in the Red Sea. In this dive we were 14 divers on the boat to Dunraven, we were divided into 3 groups with each instructor, we prepared our gears on, the boat dropped us off away from the wreck, swimming up a sandy hill, and then the Dunraven appeared I took a deep breath as I saw the Dunraven my very first wreck to see, we swam around the wreck saw all the coral reefs stuck to it, a lot of beautiful fish.

A part of the wreck’s propeller was broken so we dived through it pretty amazing, we swam inside the it was very scary as it was a bit dark inside but we managed to lit up a torch, then I spotted 2 huge moray eels inside a broken part of the wreck. It was about 55 minute dives, really a very magnificent experience.

In the memory of Dave the turtle

Dave was well known to many divers who have dived in the Red Sea at Ras Mohammed, where he has been a regular around Shark and Yolanda reefs for some years.

Dave is easily recognized, as a portion of his rear shell was missing above his right flipper from a collision with a boat propeller. Which caused a split of his shell and great efforts went into rehabilitating him to allow a safe release, which was achieved on the 2nd of February.

Although he would always be spotted the next day feeding away on Shark and Yolanda reefs. Sadly, one day he was surfaced by a dive boat after some guides from a diving centre decided he was ill again and needed treatment. It seemed Dave could not stop for a rest without reports flooding in that he was dead.

Dave was a favorite of mine as he was the first turtle I have ever seen, I was very happy to see him when I was in the water as turtles one of my favorite animal. I was devastated to know his story, when my instructor explained it to me.

Night Dive

The thought of being in the sea at night gives me the creeps, but when I got into the warm water I became so excited just to know what will be down there. In a while I became much calmer and safer as I had 2 instructors, a dive master and 3 other divers with me in the dive. We swam off shore from Namaa Bay it was so dark that our torches light barely lit up in front of us.

During our dive we spotted lots of weird fish that I never saw before in day light dives, then we swam up to the main coral reef in the bay, we saw another group of divers we waved hi to them, we also made scary faces with the light, stayed for a bit then we took off. A while later we sat on the bottom in a circle, our instructor guided us to turn off the light and to wave our hands through the water, we suddenly saw small glowing stars, it was something we’ve never seen before, a magnificent feeling ever. But we had to turn on our lights and move back to shore as we lost 3 of our team members, we started to look for them for about 2 minutes, my instructor and I were the only ones left so we had to ascent to look for the other 2.

My instructor said in a funny way”very weird losing an instructor, a dive master in a dive never happened to me before”. We yelled their names while we swam till shore until we found them, they had joined the other group of divers in the dark thinking they were us. As a rule in diving you have to stick to your buddy underwater till the end of the dive. It was an experience that gave me a wonderful feeling and I’m sure I can do it over and over again.

How did it start?

I have been going to Sharm El Sheikh ever since I can remember, I used to snorkel play around the beach and I used to look at scuba divers as if they are weird and they are just diving to kill little fish. So one day I decided to try and took an intro (one dive as an introduction). I felt like am flying underwater I have never felt that happy.

So the next year I took the first diving course which is called Open Water Course, my instructor’s name was Sarah Woodford from England and have been living in Sharm El Sheikh for more than 13 years. Made friends with other 5 divers from England as well, finished the course in 5 days.

After that I went diving in other diving sites in the Red Sea such as Ras Mohammed, Middle Garden, Fiddle Garden and Yolanda Reef. In my second dive after the course I saw my very first shark which was a very lucky and adventurous many divers are looking for.