Diving in Sharm El Sheikh

Many travellers arriving at Sharm airport get a free entry permit for the South Sinai resorts, valid for a short stay. It covers Sharm, Dahab, Nuweiba and Taba – but not the rest of Egypt. For Cairo or Luxor you need a full Egyptian visa. Whether the permit is enough for Ras Mohammed is answered differently by different operators, so ask the one you book with.

No. The island belongs to Saudi Arabia and landing is not permitted. Boat trips to Tiran anchor at the reefs in the strait – Gordon, Thomas, Woodhouse and Jackson – and you snorkel or dive from the boat. Anyone promising a beach on Tiran is describing something that does not happen.

Usually not. Ras Mohammed charges an entrance fee per person that is collected on the day, in cash, and boat trips into the park pass it on. Bring small notes and your passport: there is a checkpoint on the road south, and boats are registered as well.

Sharm is about five hundred road kilometres from Cairo. The flight takes under an hour and makes a long but normal day. The bus takes six hours or more each way, which means leaving in the middle of the night and getting back after dark. Both see the same pyramids; only one leaves you fit the next morning.

The sea here is warm all year – around 21 to 24 °C even in midwinter – which is why the season never really closes. Wind is the deciding factor: from roughly November to March afternoons can get choppy and boat days are cancelled more often. High summer is reliably calm and reliably very hot on land.

No. Sharm grew as a resort town from the 1980s onwards and has no ancient monuments of its own. The nearest is a long desert drive away, and the pyramids and the Nile temples are a flight. What the town has instead is the reef, the desert behind it and the Sinai mountains – and those are genuinely world class.

Diving organisations recommend a gap of at least 18 hours after repeated dives before flying, and dive centres here plan around it. Say your departure time when you book the last day of diving, and the centre will tell you what it allows. This is a rule worth keeping even when it costs you a morning.