Yanbu

From Yanbu you sail north to Shib Shuayba, Ras Baridi, Sharm Hessy then south to the Seven Sisters in the hopes of diving with the Hammerheads. Yanbu is located on about the same latitude as the border of Egypt with Sudan, more than five hundred kilometers south of Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt!

Most of the diving around Yanbu is wall diving, some dive sites are on slopes or plateau's. There are some nice wrecks in the Yanbu waters.

You can expect truelly magnificent world class diving. The reef life is abundant and colourfull with many soft corals. The Gorgonian corals are 2 to 3 meters across and there are walls of black coral. On the reef you will see many anthias, clownfish, snappers, moray eels and butterfly fish. Along the reef you will see schools of big eye jacks, huge Trevally jacks, schooling barracudas, schooling tuna, big solitary barracudas and large solitary big eye tuna, dogtooth tuna and yellowfin tuna. There are many rays, and manta's can be seen. You will have many shark encounters, white tip reef sharks, grey reef sharks and hammerhead sharks. There are not as many turtles as at the Farasan Banks, because there are no islands for them to nest on.

Needless to say that diving in Saudi Arabia is pristine, there are only 3 liveaboard boats for the whole of the Saudi Red Sea Coast, which is over 1.800 km long. Yanbu about a 4 hours drive from Jeddah.

Diving is good all year round, there is no bad season.... if you spend a week diving the Yanbu area in april or october, you will have a splendid week on both occasions. There might be a bit more wind than at the Farasan Banks, but diving is always possible on the reefsides protected from the wind and waves.

Description of some of the dive sites.

Marker No 39
Tower light mark 39 a reef which is located in the southern part of the Seven Sisters chain. This beautiful dive site is full of hard and soft corrals of all colors, in this area we have dived with schools of pick handle barracuda and red snapper, squirrel fish of enormous size and the many and varied smaller reef fishes.

Marker No 41
Tower light marker 41 is a drop off dive with again a very beautiful wall full of different colored coral, with schools of red and black snapper racing from the top of the reef into the many lagoons dotted into the wall, swimming in the current just of the wall are the white fin, dog tooth and bonito tuna looking for a snack.

Marker No 32
Tower light mark 32, a soft coral reef, if you are planning a fun dive this is the reef for you, it is especially nice if you are a photography or movie maker, on this reef we have seen tiger shark, yellow fin tuna, white tip reef shark and grey reef shark, the numerous different kinds of soft and hard coral make this site a Dream.

Abu Galawa
Abu Galawa reef is one our most beautiful dive sites, the next to last reef in the Seven Sisters chain it has one of the only shallow anchorages in the area allowing you to overnight in relative safety. The Galawa reef is a corral grotto on the Eastern side with a drop off to North and South the Grotto in 20 meters of water the Drop off going to 200 meters, schools of barracuda, large grouper can be seen on the plateau, cruising the drop off are many different species of red sea shark.