Dahab Blue Hole

How deep is the Dahab Blue Hole?

The Blue Hole is a collapse in the fringing reef: an almost round pool, open to the beach, that drops to more than 100 meters. On the seaward side, only a coral saddle 7 meters below the surface closes it off, and divers use it to enter and exit. Lower down, from 55 meters, a tunnel 26 meters long, the Arch, cuts through the reef and links the hole to the outer wall. From shore you see only a dark blue disk ringed with turquoise; the Bedouin cafés, the dive groups gearing up on the rugs and the freedivers' lines in the middle complete the scene.

What is the Bells to Blue Hole dive like?

The dive starts a hundred meters to the north, at the Bells: a crack in the top of the reef where you sink straight down, your tank so close to the rock that it rings like a bell, hence the name, to a small arch at 26 meters that opens onto the outer wall. You then drift south along the wall, soft corals and anthias on your right, the blue on your left, slowly rising. The saddle, at 7 meters, marks the way into the hole, where you finish the dive and your safety stop above the void, often beneath freedivers going down their line. The Canyon, two kilometers south, or Eel Garden, in Dahab itself, makes the second dive of the day.

Why is the Blue Hole Arch so dangerous?

The Blue Hole has a reputation as the deadliest dive site in the world, and it comes down to a single passage: the Arch. The tunnel entrance is hard to find, the 26 meter swim is longer than it looks, the current often flows through it toward the hole, and the ceiling is at 55 meters: on a standard air tank, nitrogen narcosis and air that runs out fast at that depth do the rest. Dozens of divers have died there, most often recreational divers who overestimated their abilities; their plaques are set in the cliff above the beach. For a trained and equipped tech diver, the passage poses no particular problem. For everyone else, the site comes down to the wall and the hole, and that is already a very fine dive.

Why is Dahab called the freediving capital?

Deep, sheltered and reachable from the beach, the pool has made the Blue Hole one of the world's freediving centers: Dahab schools set up their lines there all year, and competitions are held there. For scuba divers, that means sharing the water with freedivers dropping straight down in the middle of the hole: stay along the edges, never swim under a line, and keep your bubbles away from their path.

What other shore dives are there in Dahab?

Dahab is dived almost entirely from the beach. The Canyon, between the village and the Blue Hole, is a narrow crack that runs under the reef down to 30 meters, full of glassfish. Eel Garden, north of the village, is a sandy plateau of garden eels. Lighthouse, in the center, is the training and night dive site; The Islands, to the south, is a shallow maze of coral heads. Farther north, Abu Galum can only be reached by camel or by boat, for reefs with nobody on them.