| Shaāb Claudio · شعاب كلاوديو | ||
| Governorate | Red Sea | |
|---|---|---|
no tourist info on Wikidata:  | ||
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Scha'ab Claudio, Arabic:شعاب / شعب كلاوديو, „Claudio Reef"Orشعاب / شعب كلاودية, „Claudia Reef“, Also Sha'b / Shaab Claudio / Claudia / Claude, is a platform reef group in the center of the Fury Shoal group in the egyptian part of Red seawhich is about 13 kilometers from the mainland. The reef includes two platform reefs and several tower reefs, with most of the diving taking place on the southern reef. In addition to an extensive and beautiful reef landscape, it offers an extensive and easy-to-dive cavern system which, due to its dimensions and relatively shallow depth of three to eight meters, is also suitable for less experienced divers. Due to its beauty and its varied underwater world, it is visited by many divers.
background
The reef group is located about 13 kilometers from the mainland coast in the open sea. The name of the reef is said to go back to the Italian diver who discovered this group of reefs.
The reef consists of two sub-reefs, the 1 North reef and the one to the southeast 2 South reef. The north reef, which is rarely dived, is around 300 meters long from northwest to southwest, while the south reef roughly has a diameter of around 500 meters. The top of both reefs is about half a meter below the surface of the water. Between the two reefs there is an approximately 150-meter-wide channel, in the east end of which there are two tower reefs. In the south of the south reef there is also another tower reef, which also extends up to half a meter below the water surface. The reefs drop relatively flat to the sandy bottom at 18 to 20 meters.
There is seldom a current, and when it is, it is usually only weak.
getting there
The journey can only be made by ship. This is on day trips from 1 Ḥamāṭa from or on diving safaris possible. The journey from Ḥamāṭa takes about an hour and a half.
There are two anchorages at the break-off edge on the southeast side of the southern reef.
Divers on safari boats have a slight advantage because they can do their first dive with the day trippers before the boats arrive or in the late afternoon after their departure.
Tourist Attractions
On the south reef, especially on its west side, there are numerous hard and soft corals, including bush, pore, table corals and anemones. The animal world includes, inter alia. Anemonefish, the Napoleon, the conch, the giant grouper, the blue spotted ray and many small reef inhabitants.
In the south of the south reef there are two cavern systems, which of course have their own charm.
activities
The dive usually starts on the south side of the south reef near the anchorage. You only dive to a depth of about 7 to 8 meters, because at this depth there are two entrances to the southern one Cavern system are located. The entrances are somewhat hidden behind corals. One of the entrances is in the area of the incision in the reef top and is easy to find. The cavern is spacious and has hardly any branches, so you can hardly get lost. Despite the size of the caverns, buoyancy should be taken into account. Follow the cavern in a westerly direction and reach the exit on the west side of the south reef in the area of a large coral garden in about 4 meters water depth. The exit is also hidden behind corals. About 75 meters further north of the aforementioned exit is the access - entrance and exit - to another cavern.
There is an extensive one on the entire west side Coral garden, in which diving depths of 15 meters are hardly exceeded. Groupers are often found in the crevices of the reef wall. The coral garden mainly consists of different hard corals such as bush, pore and table corals, which take on larger dimensions towards the north.
One automatically reaches the channel between the two reefs, the sandy bottom of which is about twelve meters deep. There are two tower reefs at the east end of the canal. A little west of these two reefs there are anemones on the north side of the south reef at a depth of about ten meters.
You can now swim back the same way or take the way back on the east side of the reef, which is not uninteresting but cannot keep up with the beauty of the coral garden on the west side.
The north reef has neither a cavern system nor a coral garden, so that it is mostly not visited by divers.
Kitchen and accommodation
Accommodation and meals are provided on the day trip and safari boats.
literature
- : Diver’s Atlas Southern Red Sea: Dive site descriptions for liveaboards and day trips. Vienna: Seainsight, 2011, ISBN 978-3-9503160-0-1 . Dive site 1-4-5.
