The Canyon, Dahab

The Canyon sits a short drive north of Dahab town and just south of the Blue Hole. From the surface it looks unremarkable - reef shallows, sand, a fringing coral garden. The drama is underwater. The reef splits open into a long vertical canyon that drops to about 30 metres, with the canyon walls climbing back up to a coral-covered ceiling.

Inside the canyon the light changes. Shafts of sun spear down through gaps in the ceiling, picking out clouds of glassfish that fill the space. Large groupers hang motionless in shadow. Lionfish patrol the walls. The sand floor is patterned with the burrows of garden eels at the canyon mouth.

I dive the Canyon with Advanced Open Water divers and above. It is not technically demanding, but the depth, the enclosed feeling, and the disorientation of being inside a coral-rock chamber call for solid buoyancy and a good gas plan. Properly briefed, it is one of the dives guests remember for years.