Giftun Islands
Hurghada’s standard day trip, and for good reason: proper coral gardens in a protected area, 45 minutes out of the marina.
Getting in
From the boat, usually off a ladder into water well over your head. Buoyancy aids are normal and nobody minds.
The Giftun islands sit a short run off Hurghada and are the reason the town became a diving destination. For snorkellers they offer the coast’s most accessible proper coral — not a house reef with some fish, but reef gardens with the density and colour people picture when they book a Red Sea holiday.
The catch is volume. On a busy day dozens of boats are working the same handful of moorings. A good operator takes you somewhere quieter; a cheap one takes you to Mahmya with everyone else.
What you are likely to see
- Dense hard and soft coral gardens
- Anthias, butterflyfish, parrotfish and wrasse in numbers
- Turtles occasionally on the outer sites
- Dolphins sometimes on the crossing, not at the reef
Conditions
- Sheltered sites and exposed ones — which you get depends on the wind and the skipper
- Inside a protected area; entry fees apply and fund the protection
- Busy. This is where most of Hurghada’s day-trip traffic goes
What to watch out for
- You are dropped in deep water. If you are not a confident swimmer, say so before the boat leaves rather than at the ladder — every operator has vests and it is a normal request.
- Standing on coral to adjust a mask is the most common damage snorkellers do. There is no shallow reef flat to stand on here for a reason.
- Mahmya beach is a day-trip destination with a bar and crowds; the better snorkelling is away from it. Ask for the outer sites.
Conditions change and this is planning information, not a briefing. Nobody can promise you an animal. If something goes wrong in the water, the coast’s emergency numbers are on our emergency contacts page.
Also in this bay — Hurghada
Dive sites
- Careless ReefIntermediate
Two pinnacles north-east of Giftun with a dramatic drop-off, long known for moray eels and for currents that decide the dive plan.
- Sha’ab Abu NuhasIntermediate
A shallow reef at the mouth of the Gulf of Suez that has claimed at least four ships — the Giannis D, Carnatic, Chrisoula K and Kimon M — all divable in a day.
- SS ThistlegormAdvanced
A British armed merchant ship sunk by air attack in 1941, still holding its wartime cargo of motorcycles, trucks and rifles. Widely considered one of the best wreck dives in the world.
- Giftun IslandsBeginner
Hurghada’s house reefs: a cluster of sheltered sites in a protected area, where most of the coast’s divers make their first Red Sea dive.
Wrecks
- SS ThistlegormIntermediate
A British war freighter still loaded with the equipment of an army that never received it — motorcycles, trucks, rifles and two railway locomotives — and the best-known wreck dive in the world outside Truk Lagoon.
- Giannis DIntermediate
The most photographed wreck at Abu Nuhas, and the most disorienting: the whole stern section lies canted hard over, so every corridor inside it runs at an angle your inner ear refuses to accept.
- SS CarnaticIntermediate
A Victorian P&O steamer that has been on the reef since 1869, so thoroughly colonised that her ribs now read as architecture rather than as a ship. The oldest wreck dived on this coast.
- Chrisoula KBeginner
The one carrying Italian floor tiles, still stacked in the holds forty years later. The shallowest and most forgiving wreck at Abu Nuhas, and the one novice wreck divers should meet first.
- Kimon MAdvanced
Carrying lentils from Turkey to India when she hit the reef in 1978. The deepest and least visited of the Abu Nuhas wrecks, because she sits where the weather does.
- Rosalie MollerTechnical
The Thistlegorm’s forgotten sister in the same story: bombed by the same squadron two nights later, sunk in the same anchorage, and left almost perfectly intact in 50m — which is why almost nobody sees her.
Kitesurfing
- HurghadaImprover
Wind, schools and cheap lessons in and around the city — less refined than El Gouna, considerably cheaper, and more variable.
The town guide for Hurghada