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On its eastern coastline, Soma Bay's House Reef extends from Shaab Saiman at the North headland to the Southern tip of Ras Abou Soma, or "Bay Point". This several kilometer long house reef is teeming with a wide assortment of marine life.
A few meters from the tip of the Peninsula is one of the jewels of Soma Bay: Tubya Arbaa. Although the Arabic name refers to the number "four", there are actually seven pillars of coral rising from the sandy bottom. Anthias and basslets cover soft Corals and the occasional napoleon, puffer fish, dozens of lionfish and a large potato cod can be seen there. This is a beautiful dive, yet relatively shallow at 20 meters.
The two other fabulous dives on the northern tip of Soma Bay's House Reef, Ras Umm Hesiwa and Shaab Saiman, are both open to the weather; but, in good conditions, you can see all the fish you could hope for from Morays to whitetips, crocodile fish to barracudas and sharks. Ras Umm Hesiwa is the headland north of Soma Bay. The strong currents mean that more often than not sharks are a common sight, from sleeping whitetips to thresher sharks.
Other famous dive spots in the area are only a short boat trip away. Of those, Panorama Reef and Abou Kafan are particularly impressive.
Panorama Reef is a huge coral formation - its walls dropping to over 100 meters with numerous grottos and overhangs, gorgonians and soft corals. Marine life is abundant with schools of surgeon fish, barracuda, unicorn fish, whitetips, grey reefs, eagle rays and turtles.
Abou Kafan is a long, narrow reef barrier featuring a plateau to both the north and the south, offering superb wall diving with soft and black coral, giant fan coral and gorgonians. Marine life abounds here with large tunas and barracudas and hundreds of the usually solitary glasseyes. Turtles are common and grey reefs and silvertips are seen occasionally with hammerheads usually cruising by in late summer.
Other great dives include: Hal Hal, Shaab Shehr, The Tubyas, The Gamuls and, of course, the Salem Express Wreck.
And if you don't dive, then there's still plenty to keep you occupied at Soma Bay with a choice of enticing snorkeling sites, most of which are easily accessible straight from shore.
The Jetty takes you directly to one of the best snorkeling experiences. From here you can snorkel south to the tip of Bay Point and watch plenty of marine life & beautiful multicolored coral formations.
Other shore-based snorkeling routes include a crescent-shaped string of coral clusters from the eastern tip of Robinson Club's beach to Bay Point.
There are also a number of snorkeling sites that can be reached by a short boat trip. These include Tubya El-Hamra, Tubya El-Beida, all within fifteen minutes by boat and also, the jewel that is Tubya Arbaa (our seven coral towers), lying only a few hundred meters off Bay Point.
For additional information, please call the Dive Center or Contact Us.
T: +20 65 3545-004 / F: +20 65 3544-280
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