• 28°34.364′ N – 34°32.211′ E

• The Blue Hole is one of the most famous diving

• sites in the whole the Red Sea, not because of its beauty but unfortunately because it is associated with a high number of fatal incidents. The Blue Hole is situated 12 km north of Dahab and 1.5 km north of another famous site called ‘The Canyon’ from where the track to this site starts and which is accessible by any vehicle. Until 2003 a narrow passage through two rocks situated a few hundred meters away from the site made access to Blue Hole complicated, but

• with the opening of the new route in 2004 these difficulties have definitely ceased. The

• beauty of the site has a special appeal and attracts hundreds of tourists every day, among which

• The most difficult passage of the track leading to Blue Hole (A) and the new route (B) The most difficult passage of the track leadin allowing access for all kinds of vehicles

• On the rocky wall of the northern side of the Blue Hole, nearby the narrow track leading to El Bells, there are the memorial tablets to commemorate the too many scuba divers, almost all of them young and without any doubt experienced divers, who aimed to challenge their limits or to satisfy their adventurous instincts but never found their way back to the surface from this vertiginous pit. Why does the Blue Hole claim so many victims? The upper part of the gallery to exit to the open sea is situated at a depth of 52 meters: at this depth – diving on compressed air without the use of suitable gas mixes including inert gases like helium – a minimal effort is enough to increase the respiratory rhythm.

• The inhalation of oxygen and nitrogen at hyperbaric pressure can have dramatic consequences; oxygen becomes toxic once the partial pressure rises above 1.4 to 1.6 atm. Sometimes you come upon a counter-current in the 26 meters long gallery leading to the

• external reef wall, especially close to the exit: in this case the diver needs to exercise more thus increasing the risk of hyperventilation with disastrous consequences including loss of orientation, convulsions, visual disturbances and respiratory failure.

• Blue Hole by foot along a track. El Bells is a sort of chimney in the reef and is open at the upper part towards the sea, that widens and narrows forming cavities in the shape of bells: the third one of these starts at 26 meters after a big arch and is 6-7 meters high. You enter through a crack in the reef from where you jump into the blue: a few meters below the surface the spectacle is magnificent and the chimney is lightened by sun

• rays that give life to the whole spectrum of blue. Here you descend into this extraordinary universe to a depth of 30 meters around the third and big bell. Then abandon the chimney and proceed towards the south with the reef on your right while ascending slightly. The beautiful wall falls vertically into the blue and is often encrusted with big colonies of Star coral

• (Pachyseris speciosa) of a brownish colour and bordered by gorgonians, soft corals, black corals, anemones (genus Heteractis) with their anemonefish, and animated by some more or less deep shelters over which schools of red Scalefin anthias (Pseudanthias squamipinnis), butterflyfish (genus Chaetodon) and angelfish (genus Pomacanthus) swim. After around half

• an hour at a depth of 7 meters you reach the saddle that allows the entrance to the inside of the Blue Hole situated by a beautiful coral garden teeming with life. At this point you just need to skirt around the madrepore walls in which you can observe some big sponges called Elephant ear sponge (lanthella basta) before exiting the water to the western part of the Blue Hole.

El Bells

scuba divers now count for only a small part: the shingle beach and the barrier reef separating the Blue Hole from the open sea are perfect for bathing and snorkelling in waters that are always calm. A huge number of small and friendly Bedouin restaurants opened along the shore of the Blue Hole with the tourist influx over the last few years. The site is a madrepore formation with special characteristics: it has an almost circular shape, 150 meters wide and 110 meters deep and connects One of the many with the open sea through a tunnel 26 meters long and whose ceiling starts at a depth of 52 meters. The interest in diving the Blue Hole is in reality relatively small, its walls are plain with few hard corals, its fauna very limited and the underwater landscape insignificant. Yet the site can be very interesting when doing a drift dive starting from the nearby site called ‘El Bells’ (from the original name ‘The Bells’) situated 250 meters to the north and accessible from the

• 28°34.364′ N – 34

Blue Hole – El Bells

On the rocky wall of the northern side of the Blue Hole, nearby the narrow track leading to El Bells, there are the memorial tablets to commemorate the too many scuba divers, almost all of them young and without any doubt experienced divers, who aimed to challenge their limits or to satisfy their adventurous instincts but never found their way back to the surface from this vertiginous pit. Why does the Blue Hole claim so many victims? The upper part of the gallery to exit to the open sea is situated at a depth of 52 meters: at this depth – diving on compressed air without the use of suitable gas mixes including inert gases like helium – a minimal effort is enough to increase the respiratory rhythm.

The inhalation of oxygen and nitrogen at hyperbaric pressure can have dramatic consequences; oxygen becomes toxic once the partial pressure rises above 1.4 to 1.6 atm. Sometimes you come upon a counter current in the 26 meters long gallery leading to the

external reef wall, especially close to the exit: in this case the diver needs to exercise more thus increasing the risk of hyperventilation with disastrous consequences including loss of orientation, convulsions, visual disturbances and respiratory failure.