El Shugurat (little trees)

El Shugurat also known as “Little Trees” in Arabic gets its name from the forest of gorgonian fan corals which densely cover the sloping reef wall. The site is about 10 km south of Dahab and normally only accessible by boat. The reef slopes off sharply to approx. 16 metres to a large sandy ledge at 20 metres. If you follow the dive site North, you will see a large open crack. This canyon is open and allows you to swim between the coral walls to 30 metres where you can exit into the blue water. Just before exiting at 25 metres there are 2 large black corals – these look like huge underwater fir trees, look carefully as hiding amongst the branches the photogenic longnose hawkfish is hiding.
As you exit the canyon turn left, the current maybe running so enjoy flying by the large gorgonian fan forest from which the dive site gets its name, the fans descend down the reef wall as far as the eye can see. As you start making your ascent over the fans you will see many of them filled with glass fish and colourful soft corals intermingled with them, magnificent large table corals come into view as the reef wall starts to merge back with the sandy plateau and becomes a lagoon, hawksbill and green turtles can often be found around this area.
Depending on the current you can continue north or often in the shallows you can turn the dive and spend plenty of time in the lagoon area searching for the small things in life – nudibranchs, crocodile fish, blue spotted rays, this is the perfect place to do your safety stop as the light penetrates to see the colourful strawberry corals and small fish dance near the surface catching the light on their silver scales.