If you have the current from the south when you arrive at Shabrouhr Um Gammar, or if it’s an afternoon dive or, if you’ve just done the east side once too many, there is a beautiful dive to be found on the west side. Whatever current you do have, the dive is equally good from north to south as the other way around. You can also dive from the mooring and back.

If you go from the boat you descend next to a pinnacle that’s connected to the main reef at the base. You arrive to a sandy plateau scattered with outcrops of corals of various sizes and shapes. Here you encounter a verity of marine life. Blue-spotted rays and crocodilefish feed on crustaceans in the sand and striped eel catfish zig-zag between the coral blocks and it’s likely to catch a glance of free swimming moray eels or a turtle feeding on soft coral.

On your way north you pass numerous beautiful pinnacles and three quarters of the way up the reef there is an area where the bottom is covered with bushes of the fragile and beautiful coral Seriatopora hystrix that indicates that this site is less dived than many others.

This dive site is excellent for macro photography. Coming up to the main wall you should be able to fill a few frames with colourful gold-dot ted flatworm, tiger flatworm, twin chromodoris. Also larger predators swing by like tunas and jacks hunting in the vast schools of fusiliers so it’s worth keeping an eye out into the blue. Even sharks are spotted here from time to time.

When it’s time for safety stop, be aware of currents and waves. There can be a bit of surge at the shallows but the colours and the condition of the coral is spectacular.

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Big thanks to Anders "Samaka" Jälmsjö (https://www.facebook.com/redsea.equalizer) for the site map and description.