Sharm El Sheikh sits at the confluence of the Gulf of Aqaba and the Gulf of Suez, where the continental shelf drops abruptly and nutrient-rich currents sustain over 220 coral species. The southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula became a protected marine reserve in 1983 when Ras Mohammed National Park was gazetted, enclosing 480 square kilometres of reef systems that Jacques Cousteau surveyed in 1951 and declared among the planet's five finest dive sites. The park's vertical walls descend beyond recreational dive limits, their upper terraces colonised by table corals, gorgonian fans, and barrel sponges that host hawksbill turtles and grey reef sharks year-round. Discover scuba diving Sharm El Sheikh operations centre on two principal zones. Ras Mohammed's southern reefs—Shark Reef, Yolanda Reef, and Anemone City—lie 12 nautical miles from Naama Bay and require boat transfer; visibility averages 30 metres outside summer plankton blooms. Tiran Island, 25 nautical miles northeast, guards the Straits of Tiran with four named reefs—Jackson, Woodhouse, Thomas, and Gordon—each marked by a navigation beacon and flanked by walls that begin at five metres depth. The Egyptian Ministry of Environment enforces a 15-dollar-per-person conservation fee payable in cash at park gates, funds allocated to mooring-buoy maintenance and ranger patrols that have reduced anchor damage by 60 percent since 2018. Beginner diving programmes in Sharm El Sheikh follow PADI Discover Scuba protocols: a 30-minute pool or shallow-water orientation followed by a supervised open-water dive to 12 metres maximum depth. Most operators sail before 08:00 to reach Ras Mohammed's sheltered bays—Marsa Bareika and Marsa Ghozlani—before midday winds exceed 15 knots. Water temperature holds at 26 degrees Celsius in autumn, requiring only a 3-millimetre wetsuit. The Red Sea's hypersaline composition—41 parts per thousand compared to the global average of 35—provides additional buoyancy that simplifies neutral-buoyancy training for first-time divers. Sharm el sheikh scuba tours expanded significantly after the 2021 reopening of Sharm El Sheikh International Airport to European carriers, with liveaboard vessels now departing weekly for multi-day itineraries that include the Thistlegorm wreck and the Brothers Islands. The town's hyperbaric chamber, operated by the South Sinai Health Directorate at Sharm El Sheikh International Hospital, provides 24-hour decompression services within 15 minutes of all major dive centres, a critical safety infrastructure that has contributed to the region's exemplary safety record—fewer than two incidents per 100,000 dives since 2015.