Brother Islands - Safaga

Brother Islands - Safaga

Itinerary Highlights

  • The "Brothers" are among the absolute top spots in the world! Big Brother thrills with spectacular drop-offs, huge gorgonian fans, soft corals and an indescribable abundance of fish.
  • The "Aida" and "Numidia" offer unique diving experiences for wreck fans. For "experts", Little Brother is the even better place despite all the superlatives: immense overhangs, fields of soft and hard corals, turtles, tunas and schools of mackerel are part of everyday diving.
  • Big fish like thresher sharks, hammerheads, capital "greys", whitetips and blacktips congregate here early in the morning and dusk with countless other species of deep-sea fish.
  • Safaga, with its fantastic dive sites Abu Kifan and Panorama Reef, is, along with diving the Salem Express, a successful part of this safari.

Dive sites in this itinerary

  • Brother Islands

    The Brother Islands one of the best diving spots in the world. The Islands – the Big Brother and the Little Brother – are two small exposed promontories that just come out of the water in the middle of the sea at around 60 km from the Egyptian coast line. The Little Brother has a very high concentration of life in a much reduced area. The walls are covered literally with sponges, anemones and all sorts of hard and soft corals in an astonishing variety of colors and shapes. Of course you will find here plenty of fish. It is not unusual to see sharks: hammerheads, thresher sharks, grey reef sharks, silvertip and whitetip reef sharks. About one km north of the Little Brother lays the Big Brother. Situated, in the middle of the island, is a lighthouse. When it is not too windy, you can proceed to dive the Wreck Numidia which lies upon the reef on the northern side of the island between 5 m and 80 m. This 150 m long ship sunk in 1901 and is now completely covered with both hard and soft corals and gorgonias. At the NW side of the island you will find the other Wreck: the AIDA. This 82 m long steam ship sunk 1957. The remaining pieces of the Wreck are scattered all over the reef and just the back side of the hull can be found between 34 m and 60 m. It is nicely overgrown and worth to visit. Because of strong current and may be high waves it is not easy to dive at the Brother’s. This safari is only for experienced divers.

  • Numidia

    The Red Sea has a width of 180 km at the Brothers, yet the crew managed to hit this small island - shortly after two o'clock in the morning, Captain Craig was rudely awakened by the violent impact of the ship on the reef at the northern end of the "Big Brother". The "officer on watch", Merwood, had probably fallen asleep at the same time as his boss. The resulting course then led the ship in truly somnambulistic safety right into the middle of the reef. The ship was thus stuck in and on the narrow fringing reef and all efforts to free itself failed. In the following days, attempts were made to tow the Numidia free with the help of other ships, but this failed. Captain Craig was left with the thankless task of remaining on the desolate island for several more weeks to supervise the salvage of the cargo. Probably in the winter storms of 1901/02, the ship was then torn from the reef and it sank for good.

  • Aida

    The dive on the AIDA is an extraordinary dive, no matter how much experience you have as a diver. It leaves you wondering how a ship can sink like that and stand on the sloping reef edge, as if parked. Since the ship no longer contains any cargo, one suspects that this has slipped through the wreck and now lies in deeper regions on the ground. Same as, the AIDA stands bolt upright on the sloping reef edge, the highest point at 25 m, the screw at 57 m. Apart from the collision with the reef, the ship is still completely intact. It has been there for more than 40 years now and is becoming more and more part of the reef, overgrown with corals.

  • Shaab Sheer

    The north side of "Shaab Sheer" is a bit more turbulent, but the south side is like a lagoon and is usually very well protected. We have to reckon with the strongest current on the west side, which faces the "South Safaga Channel". Most divers appreciate the area between three and 15 metres depth because of the quasi "moonscape" of the brain coral garden, nevertheless we find many different reef inhabitants at "Shaab Sheer". Picasso triggerfish, orange-striped and yellow-fringed triggerfish, parrotfish, pencil filefish and sling jaw wrasses can be found here in masses. In the area of the northern plateau and at the steep wall we can also see bream, bigeye empereor, mackerel, red and black snapper as well as schools of tuna and barracuda.

  • Panorama Reef

    The east and west sides of Panorama Reef drop off steeply, but to the north and south we find very interesting plateaus with lots of life and, how could it be otherwise, a panorama of a special kind. We see nose doctor fish, barracudas, fathead mackerels, moray eels, crocodile fish, eagle rays, napoleons and turtles. Great mountain corals, large table corals and thousands of anthias can be found on the northern plateau of Panorama Reef. The current is 95 per cent from the north, which means it's often quite "stormy" here. The southern plateau is more protected, starting at a depth of 18 metres and slowly dropping to 30 metres. Here, huge gorgonians grow above the chimney. A large anemone field is just as much a part of it as the almost obligatory sighting of stonefish.

Golden Dolphin Safari World

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