El Fanadir

El Fanadir (also known as Gota El Fanadir, Sha'ab El Fanadir, and several other local variants) is a long reef running parallel to the coast on the reefs north-east of Hurghada, in the Egyptian Red Sea. The reef has two distinct faces: a sheltered, gently sloping coral garden on the inside and a sheer drop-off wall on the east side, with a shelf of roughly 30 m wide before the wall descends to a maximum documented depth of 30 m, with a typical working depth of around 15 m. A shallow lagoon sits inshore of the reef.

The reef rewards patient, slow searching — scorpionfish, stonefish, octopus, lionfish, giant moray, and yellow-edged moray eels are regularly encountered along the wall and slope. Blue-spotted rays are also commonly seen, while frogfish, guitar sharks, mantas, and hammerheads appear occasionally and are never guaranteed. Lyretail anthias and day octopus round out the regular cast on the reef.

El Fanadir is a boat dive, reached in around 40 to 60 minutes from central Hurghada. When current is running, it is dived as a one-way drift along the outer wall; on calm days it makes a relaxed out-and-back on the sheltered inner slope. The north tip can be included weather permitting, and the site is also used as a night-dive location. Current is variable rather than predictable, and visibility is typically around 22–30 m. Water temperature ranges from 21 °C in winter to 29 °C in summer, and the site is diveable year-round.