Reef-Safe Travel in Egypt: How to Snorkel, Dive and Holiday Without Harming the Red Sea

Why do Egypt's reefs need extra care?

Because the Red Sea's reefs start at the water's edge, the most fragile part of the reef, the shallow reef flat, is exactly where hundreds of thousands of beginners enter the water every year. On the Great Barrier Reef most visitors arrive by boat and float over the reef in deep water. In Hurghada, Sharm el-Sheikh or Marsa Alam they wade in from a hotel beach, and a single standing swimmer can snap branching coral that took years to grow. Massive corals add only millimetres a year, so a broken colony on a busy house reef may not recover within a human lifetime.

Damage also adds up. Fin kicks stir sediment that smothers coral, sunscreen and lotions leave a sheen around busy jetties, anchors drag through reef, and warm-water events stress corals already weakened by people. The good news is that the northern Red Sea's corals are unusually tough, and reefs recover well where visitors behave. Every habit in this guide is easy to adopt on your first day.

In the water: the essential reef etiquette

Enter where you are told, stay horizontal, keep your fins off the bottom and keep your hands to yourself. These rules apply whether you are snorkelling a house reef or diving a famous wall.

• Use the official entry: jetties, ladders and marked sandy channels exist so nobody walks across the reef flat. Leave the same way.
• Never stand on the reef. If you are tired, roll onto your back and float, or hold the jetty or a marked rope.
• Mind your fins: keep them near the surface in shallow water, kick gently and check behind you before turning. Shorter fins are easier to control on house reefs.
• Wear a snorkel vest if you are unsure in the water. Buoyancy keeps you flat and relaxed, and relaxed swimmers don't grab coral.
• Don't touch, chase or corner animals. Stay several metres from turtles, never hold onto one, and follow the zone rules at dolphin reefs.
• Don't feed fish. Bread and food scraps change fish behaviour, make some species aggressive and damage their health.
• Divers: do a check dive to settle your weighting, tuck in gauges and octopus, and leave gloves at home; they are not permitted in many Red Sea marine parks, precisely because they encourage touching.
• Photographers: never kneel, lie or brace on the reef for a shot, and never move an animal for a better angle.

Which sunscreen is reef-safe?

The most reef-safe sunscreen is clothing: a long-sleeved rash vest and leggings, then a mineral sunscreen based on zinc oxide for your face, hands and feet. Laboratory studies have linked some chemical UV filters, notably oxybenzone and octinoxate, to harm in corals, which is why places such as Hawaii and Palau restricted them. How much difference sunscreen makes on a real reef compared with heat and physical damage is still debated, but covering up removes the question and also protects you from the fierce Red Sea sun, which burns snorkellers' backs within half an hour.

Apply sunscreen 20 to 30 minutes before you swim so it binds to your skin rather than washing off, and use less by relying on clothing. Australians are spoilt for choice: buy a water-resistant SPF 50+ mineral product at home, because resort shops on the Red Sea stock a smaller range at higher prices. Rules at individual protected areas and dive centres vary, so follow any product guidance your operator gives.

How do you choose a responsible boat or dive centre?

Choose an operator that ties up to mooring buoys, limits group sizes, briefs you on reef rules and takes its rubbish home. Anchors dropped onto coral do lasting damage, and since the 1990s the Hurghada-based conservation organisation HEPCA has installed and maintained hundreds of mooring buoys at popular reefs, so a crew has no excuse to anchor on coral.

Questions worth asking before you book:

• How many passengers does the boat carry, and how many guides go in the water? Fifty snorkellers on one reef patch is a crowd; ten to twenty is pleasant.
• Does the briefing cover the no-touch, no-feeding and no-standing rules, as well as currents and exits?
• Does the boat use moorings, and what happens to its rubbish and toilet waste?
• Are park and protected-area fees included? They fund the rangers who enforce the rules.
• Does the centre follow a recognised environmental standard? Some Red Sea operators take part in international schemes such as Green Fins; a good one will happily explain what it does.

Non-swimmers who want to see the reef should choose a glass-bottom boat or semi-submarine rather than wading out on the reef flat. Our scuba diving in Egypt guide has more on choosing a dive centre for safety.

Shells, coral and souvenirs: what stays behind?

Leave every shell, piece of coral and sea creature where you find it: removing them from protected areas is illegal in Egypt, and customs officers at Red Sea airports check bags. Egypt's protected-area law bans collecting marine life, and fines apply. Some resort shops still sell shells, coral jewellery, dried pufferfish and even turtle-shell trinkets. Don't buy them: the trade strips the same reefs you came to see.

Home is strict too. All hard corals and giant clams are listed under CITES, the international treaty on wildlife trade, and sea turtles have the highest level of protection, so Australian and New Zealand biosecurity officers can seize these items and fine you even for a single piece. Declare anything of animal or plant origin when you land; our guide to bringing Egyptian souvenirs home covers the details. Photographs, a fish identification card and locally made crafts are better mementoes.

Out of the water: plastic, water and where you stay

Reef-safe travel continues on land: cut plastic, save water and choose hotels that protect their house reef. Wind carries plastic bags and bottles from beaches and desert onto the reef, and authorities in the Red Sea Governorate have moved to restrict single-use plastics, though enforcement varies. Carry a refillable bottle and ask your hotel or boat to refill it from filtered water.

• Fresh water along the coast comes largely from energy-hungry desalination, so short showers and reusing towels genuinely help.
• Choose resorts with roped swimming channels and staffed jetties onto the reef; it is a sign they manage their reef.
• Stay off turtle nesting beaches at night in summer and keep lights pointed away from the sand.
• Keep quad bikes and 4WDs off beaches and mangroves; tracks scar them for years.
• Consider skipping parrotfish if it is offered on a menu; the fish are vital grazers that keep algae off the coral.

Eco-lodges around Marsa Alam and Wadi el-Gemal are built at a smaller scale and often front healthier reef.

Teaching children reef manners

Children who learn to float calmly in a snorkel vest before their first reef swim are both safer and kinder to the coral. Practise in the hotel pool: mask fit, breathing through the snorkel, floating flat and kicking gently with fins. Then choose a sheltered lagoon where they can stand on sand, never on coral, and keep the first sessions to 15 or 20 minutes so tired legs don't drop onto the reef. Give them a job, such as spotting five different fish from an identification card or finding an anemonefish, which keeps them watching rather than touching. The family section of our snorkelling in the Red Sea guide suggests the best bays for younger swimmers.

A reef-safe checklist

Pack and plan with these eight points and you will leave the reef as you found it.

1. Pack a rash vest, leggings or a thin wetsuit, and a mineral sunscreen.
2. Bring your own well-fitting mask so you are not fiddling with a leaky one over the coral.
3. Choose a hotel with a jetty or marked channel onto its house reef.
4. Ask boat operators about group size, moorings and fees before you book.
5. Float, don't stand; look, don't touch; and never feed the fish.
6. Keep several metres from turtles and dolphins and let them come to you.
7. Take nothing home from the sea, and buy no coral, shell or turtle products.
8. Refill a water bottle, refuse plastic bags and pay park fees with good grace.

For the wider picture of travelling well in Egypt, from animal welfare to monuments, read our responsible travel in Egypt guide.