El Quseir

A week at Roots Red Sea, a small dive resort on the coast north of El Quseir, diving with Pharaoh Dive Club. It’s a quiet place of domed, desert-coloured buildings above Abu Sauatir bay, a long way from the big Hurghada hotels. In the evenings everyone gathers round the fire in the lounge.

This was winter Red Sea diving: 19–22 °C water, so noticeably cooler than the autumn trips, but clear. Eleven proper dives, to 32 m. The reefs had mushroom-shaped coral pinnacles and coral gardens full of anthias, with Red Sea anemonefish in their anemones. Bluespotted ribbontail rays were everywhere, tucked under the coral or lying out on the sand. There were pufferfish and a pyjama nudibranch too. One morning we went up the coast to the Salem Express, the ferry that sank off Safaga in December 1991 with heavy loss of life. She lies on her side in 30 m and is dived as a memorial, with light falling through the openings in her hull. I’d dived her once before, on the 2016 liveaboard.

Shot on the Canon G9 X Mark II in its Fantasea housing, with an INON S200 and a Weefine Smart Focus 5000.