Abu Tinun is located between Sanafir Island and the eastern end of Tiran Island. Abu Tinun is an area that is made up of a sandy shelf, coral heads and sea grasses. The coral heads are home to many cleaning stations and you will find sweetlips, jacks and large groupers that are waiting to the cleaner wrasses to remove parasites from them.

Overhangs and caves are also found on the corals heads and there are even some black coral trees. These coral trees often are the homes to longnose hawkfish that are bright red when lit by a strong light. The sea grasses are the home of many seahorses, eels, cuttlefish and stingrays. The typical depth range of the Abu Tinun is 20 to 50 feet and is best accessed by boat dive or a local guide. The expertise required for this dive site is a novice to advanced.

Located along the southwest coastline of Tiran Island is the Coral Gardens which is also called Khushkasha. These Gardens are a sandy shelf that slopes down from the shore to a depth of about 75 feet. Along the shelf are many coral heads that are full of marine life. In the many crevices and shallow caves, you will find regal and emperor angelfish, Red Sea bannerfish and butterfly fish. You will also want to be on the lookout for lionfish in the caves and crevices as well as the bluespotted stingrays that can be found in the sand.

The typical depth range for the Coral Gardens is 10 to 75 feet and is best accessed by a boat dive or local guide. The expertise required for this area is a novice to advanced.

The dive is on a submerged island about 10-15m (33-50ft) offshore, with its top in about 3m (10ft); a deep canyon extends down the southern side of the island to depths beyond 65m (213ft), while a narrow sandy channel with a bottom at 10m (33ft) separates the reef from shore. This channel broadens into a sandy plateau north of the reef, while the east side of the reef is a steep sloping wall to 50m (164ft) and beyond.

Coral cover is excellent throughout, with an amazing variety of species. All the corals are dense and profuse, and in a phenomenal state of preservation - this is one of the healthiest reefs in the region. Fish life is of the same order of excellence, with all the usual reef fish in abundance. The site also boasts one of the widest ranges of wrasse species in the Sinai area.

Flasher Reef is located between Sanafir Island and Shusha Island, which is to the east. The best time to dive here is at night. As the name suggests, the flashlight fish are everywhere. All you have to do is turn off your dive lights and the fish will surround you.

The sandy bottom surrounding the reef is covered with sea grasses, seahorses, stingrays and hermit crabs. Turtles, rays and Spanish dancer nudibrachs frequent the reef. The Spanish dancer is a real treat to watch dance in your dive light. It is even better to have a video camera running as well. If your dive boat has lights that shine into the water, you may find yourself surrounded by squid as you come back to your boat. The squid will change color very quickly as they move in and out of your dive lights.

The Gordon Reef is located in the middle of the Straits of Tiran, between Tiran island and the Sinai mainland, and like Jackson Reef to the north, is marked by the wreck of a large commercial freighter. The reef rises to just below the surface of the water at high tide.

The wall of the reef is sheer and is covered with many fan corals and soft corals. There are many open ocean fish that can often be seen in the blue waters around the reef. There is a current that will carry you at quite a fast pace, up to 2 knots, along the reef and will deposit you in a sandy flat area 40 feet deep that has many small coral heads and reef fish.

Jackson Reef is the most northern reef in the Strait of Tiran. On the northern edge of the reef, the wreck of a grounded freighter stands as a warning to shipping in the buy straits. Most of its hull has been salvaged for scrap, leaving only a skeletal hulk. A fixed mooring exits at the southern end of the reef. Dives begin from this point and proceed generally northward along the east side of the reef.

The steep-sided walls of Jackson Reef are among the finest in the Sinai region. The current-swept reef is densely grown with a real profusion of hard and soft corals, with special accents provided by luxuriant gorgonian fans, sea whips and black corals, and vivid growths of soft coral.

Koshkasha

Koshkasha is located on the south side of Tiran Island. This area is used mostly as a night dive site for liveaboard dive boats that operate in the area. The bay is about 50 feet deep and many large coral heads and shallow caves are found here. These heads and caves are covered with marine life. These coral heads really come to life at night with many colored feather stars. There are many reef fish that spend the night in the antler coral that is also found in this area. The sand on the bottom seems to be covered with bluespotted stingrays and you might even find an octopus or two.

The typical depth range of the Koshkasha is 20 to 50 feet and is best accessed by a boat dive and a local guide. The expertise required for this area is a novice to advanced.

This site is a large group of coral heads and pinnacles in shallow water off the cost of Nabq. The site is intricate and labyrinthine, with plenty of scope for exploration among the scattered coral blocks. Sitting on a flat sandy bottom well grown with eel grass, the blocks, heads and pinnacles range form 1m (3ft) babies to monsters that nearly reach the surface.

These blocks, composed of a wide range of hard and soft corals, host an equally wide range of reef fishes. Jacks, grouper, trigger, rabbitfish and many others are all present, and the isolated nature of the individual heads seems to concentrate the fish in a way that would be impossible on a more open reef. Turtles are also regular visitors to the reef.

Access from shore requires a four-wheel-drive vehicle to get to the cliff top, then a rather strenuous scramble down a narrow wadi. You will then need to make a surf entry across the jagged reeftop. This shore entry should only be attempted by fit divers experienced in rough shore entries.

Once in the water, conditions are near perfect; generally clear visibility reveals a beautiful sheer wall dropping to great depths, well grown with coral, particularly the pink soft corals for which the site is named.

This site is on a generally steep sloping reef, which includes some plateau sections and a very deep canyon running along the reef's southern section. It is the smallest of the four Tiran reefs, and its position in the chain leaves it exposed to some fairly vigorous currents.

The reef's upper section is a riot of color, encompassing some of the finest soft coral growth in the Sinai region. Huge, densely packed fields of Dendronephthya of every imaginable hue are spread across the reef, along with antler corals, fine Stylophora, some Acropora and many other stony coral forms.

Lying between Jackson and Gordon Reefs, Woodhouse is a long, narrow reef running at an angle form northeast to southwest. From its shallow reeftop, the reef drops at a sharp angle on all sides; although it is less than vertical throughout the reef's length, the angle steepens still further beyond 25m (80ft).

Woodhouse is generally dived as a drift along the reef's eastern side. The current is usually moderate, but can pick up speed at certain phases of the Moon, particularly toward the northern channel between Woodhouse and Jackson. Care should be taken not to get pulled around the point here, as you could be swept off the reef into the main shipping lane.