Overview
Eel Garden is named for a colony of several hundred Red Sea garden eels standing out of a white sand slope. Each one lives in a burrow it lines with mucus, feeds by holding itself into the current, and drops out of sight as anything large approaches, so the meadow closes ahead of a diver and reopens behind. Getting close enough to see the animals rather than the retreat is the whole exercise. The slope sits below a reef platform about 60 m across, reached through a winding channel, and a small cave at the top of the sand marks the way in.
Dive plan
The channel through the reef platform leads out to the top of the sand slope, and the eel colony is worked from above and downhill so that the approach is slow and level. The shallow reef wall and the pinnacles alongside carry the rest of the dive and hold their own light, which is why photographers use the site. With a current running the site can be taken as a drift toward the Lighthouse rather than as an out and back.
What to see
The garden eels are the reason to come, and they are best watched from a distance where they stay out of their burrows. Grey morays live in the reef at the edge of the sand, butterflyfish work the pore corals, and barracuda school off the drop. Turtles and rays cross the slope.
Dive sites nearby
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