Reefs almost nobody has dived, wrecks nobody has photographed, and infrastructure that is being built faster than the charts are updated.
The Red Sea has been on yachting’s horizon for a decade and is now moving quickly. Saudi Arabia’s coastal development, the marina building programme along its western shore and the established Egyptian and Jordanian grounds have turned a corridor that boats passed through into somewhere they stop.
What is actually there
Coral in exceptional condition, largely because so little of it has been visited. Water temperatures that stay comfortable long after the Mediterranean has cooled. Desert coastline with mountains behind it. And, at the northern end, Petra a short distance inland from Aqaba.
The wreck diving is among the best anywhere, and much of it is genuinely uncrowded.
What to understand before going
- Season
- Autumn to spring. Summer temperatures make it unpleasant and, in places, unsafe.
- Wind
- Predominantly northerly in the north for much of the year, which makes southbound passages easy and northbound work.
- Navigation
- Extensive uncharted or poorly charted reef. Local knowledge is not optional and daylight passages are the rule.
- Formalities
- Multiple jurisdictions, each with its own requirements, and rules that change. Agents are essential.
- Infrastructure
- Improving rapidly but still thin outside the developed hubs. Provisioning and repair need planning.
It is the last warm-water ground in the northern hemisphere that has not been sailed flat.
The honest assessment
This is a frontier rather than a finished destination. For guests who have sailed the Mediterranean and the Caribbean and want somewhere genuinely unfamiliar, it is the most interesting thing happening in yachting geography. For a first charter, or for anyone who wants certainty and dense infrastructure, it is not.
Conditions, access and regulations in the region change frequently. Anything planned here is planned close to the date, with current advice.
Arranged through partners on the ground. Our own water is the Adriatic.