By Sean Cooper
Sharks Bay is one of Sharm el-Sheikh’s most northern sites. You’ll never see hundreds of snappers here, or a shiver of sharks, and the only wrecks you’ll see are the sun-wizened dive guides. So why would anyone cite Shark’s Bay as one of their favorites?
For starters, it has easy shore access, and who doesn’t love to dive from the shore? On a boat you’re constrained by sea conditions, jetty times and the demands of other guides and their guests. With a shore dive, the day is yours and you can take your time with equipment preparation, briefings, surface intervals and, most importantly, the dives themselves. These are common selling points when it comes to shore diving, but not solely limited to Shark’s Bay, which I love for many other reasons.
It’s a good site for macro photography, teeming with small reef life such as gobies, blennies and juvenile fish. And it’s never subject to strong currents — perfect for macro photography. It’s also an excellent spot for a night dive, with a variety of crustaceans, echinoderms and cephalopods making regular appearances.
Shark’s Bay also has a healthy population of stonefish and scorpionfish, some of my favorite critters. I know these Ugly Bettys of the fish world are not everyone’s favorites — though I can’t understand why not —but there are also plenty of the pretty reef fish that Sharm is famous for.
My favorite spot in the whole area is a glassfish pinnacle at 92 feet (28 m) but don’t look for it on the dive maps, as it seems, amazingly, to have been overlooked. Here you’ll find a healthy pinnacle with a large pygmy sweeper colony, protected by several redmouth groupers, mantis shrimp, juvenile yellow-mouth morays and, if you can find them, harlequin shrimp.
