Blue Hole - Dahab vs South Beach - Aqaba
The Blue Hole in Dahab - Egypt is considered one of the most beautiful and rarest places you can dive in on this planet.
It provides the appropriate environment for free divers to train at depths of about 100 meters. These suitable conditions are represented by the location of this geographical hole, as you are 3-5 meters from the beach and start swimming above 110 meters, which saves you the trouble of moving by boat to reach the required depth. There are also many restaurants and cafes that provide good services and somewhat acceptable prices for visitors to the place, as you can spend your entire day there in comfort.
But during my last visit, I noticed some disadvantages that should also be talked about, starting with the lack of bathrooms that meet the need in the required manner. There were only two bathrooms, one for men and the other for women, but they were not well maintained and clean, although it is a paid service, as you have to pay 25 Egyptian pounds every time you use the bathroom.
Another note was the large number of visitors to the place, including scuba divers and snorkelers, in addition to free divers, and there were some visitors without activities.
For me as a free diver, this was distracting and made me lose focus on the rest I needed to prepare myself mentally before diving.
I thought about it carefully and realized that a place like this is suitable for professional free divers, for those who want to achieve great depths. But it is not suitable for beginners, as beginners need complete calm and greater focus in the beginning to learn every point in this sport. In addition to the fears they already have, this unnoticeable disturbance puts beginners in a state of tension and lack of focus.
Aqaba is one of the cities located on the Red Sea opposite the Sinai Peninsula (Taba) in Egypt and the city of Eilat in Israel, and adjacent to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Advantages of the southern beach in the city of Aqaba
The city overlooks 17 km of coast and contains about twenty diving sites that vary from easy to medium to difficult level, and it also contains gradually different depths from the beach to 1500 m maximum point and it is easy to reach depths of 100 m from the beach by swimming.
The public beach in the city of Aqaba covers the majority of the total area of the beach, where visitors can enjoy swimming and practice some activities without additional fees, as free divers or snorkelers can bring their own equipment or rent it from local diving centers, and enjoy marine life by reaching it just a few meters from the beach.
The public beach is empty most of the time even if the city is full of tourists, but you do not feel that on the beaches because of the vast area of the public beach as well.
It is considered somewhat clean city compared to the city of Dahab.
The prices of accommodation, restaurants, services, and various activities are almost similar to those in Dahab.
Disadvantages of the South Beach in Aqaba
The scarcity of food and beverage services on the South Beach, as there are only some cafes near the beach that provide food and beverage services, at reasonable prices. However, they are still at least 100 meters away from the beach, as they are not very close to the restaurants in Dahab.
However, there are others that are a bit far away, but that gives visitors the freedom to bring their own food, drink, or belongings.