Best Time to Dive Dahab: Water Temperature, Wind and Sites by Month

Dahab water temperature, wind and wetsuit by month

Dahab sits on the Gulf of Aqaba, about 80 km northeast of Sharm el-Sheikh, and you can dive it in any month. The real choice is between the coolest water in February and March, when February is also the calmest month, and warm water in summer, which is the windiest part of the year. This page covers Dahab only. Sharm, Marsa Alam, the Thistlegorm and the offshore parks are in our Red Sea diving guide for Egypt.

Each month in the table has two sea temperatures. The lower one is the monthly mean from NOAA Coral Reef Watch's Gulf of Aqaba station, a satellite average over a box of sea centred at 28.6°N, 34.6°E, a little north of Dahab. NOAA built it from 1985-2012 data and adjusted it to a late-1980s baseline. The higher one is seatemperature.info's Dahab average for the past 10 years. The newer figure is warmer in every month, by 0.2-1.0°C, which fits the warming measured at Eilat at the head of the gulf: 0.34°C per decade since 1988, according to the Israeli National Monitoring Program's 2023 report. Plan on the higher number and expect single days to stray. Seatemperature.info's March range goes down to 20.6°C, and its August range up to 31.1°C.

The suit column applies our wetsuit thickness chart to one dive of ordinary length: a 5mm at 20-23°C, a 3mm at 24-27°C, with the 5mm kept for divers who run cold. Go one step warmer for three dives a day or for long dives at 20 m and deeper, where neoprene is compressed. Air temperatures are average daytime highs from weather2travel, which uses long-term data from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia. Wind is the monthly average Windfinder recorded at its Dahab station between August 2003 and December 2019.

Why the Gulf of Aqaba runs cooler

Because it is a deep arm of the Red Sea with a shallow entrance. A 2023 study by Sengupta, Gildor and Ashkenazy describes the gulf as about 180 km long, 5-25 km wide and up to 1,820 m deep. It meets the Red Sea only through the Straits of Tiran, whose maximum depth is 245 m, and the authors note that these shallow sills limit how much Red Sea water flows in.

In winter the surface cools and sinks. In February and March the mixing reaches several hundred metres, and the deep water below stays just under 21°C all year. For divers that means late-winter water is close to the same temperature at 30 m as at the surface, so there is no warm layer to retreat to. In summer the surface warms and sits on top of cooler water, so a deep dive can read lower on your computer than the surface averages in the table.

The effect shows up next door. Sharm el-Sheikh is only 80 km away on the open Red Sea, yet on seatemperature.info's 10-year averages Dahab is 0.7°C cooler from February to April and 1.2-1.3°C cooler in June, July, August and October.

Dahab dive sites: mostly shore dives

Most Dahab diving starts from the beach, not from a boat. A 2003 Divernet feature described easy-access shore dives at 10-60 m. A typical day is a drive up or down the coast with the tanks in a pickup: a PADI blog by a Dahab-based writer puts the Canyon and the Blue Hole about 10 km north of the Lighthouse by pickup truck, and both are shore entries.

Shore entries depend on tide and sea state. SSI says Eel Garden is only accessible at high tide and in calm conditions, and PADI's guide to Three Pools also recommends high tide. The table gives the depths each source publishes; where two disagree, both are shown.

Blue Hole and the Arch: depth, deaths and the safe route

Most Blue Hole dives are ordinary recreational dives. The usual route enters at the Bells, a chimney that SSI says runs from the surface to 27 m and is open on one side, drifts along the outer wall and swims back into the hole over the saddle at about 7 m. SSI recommends Advanced certification because of the depths outside the hole. The hole itself is 92 m deep by SSI's figure and just over 100 m in other sources.

The Arch is where the deaths happen. It is a 26 m tunnel through the reef wall with its roof at 55 m according to Divernet and 56 m according to Egypt Independent and Undercurrent (a PADI guest post gives 65 m), and its sides drop past 100 m. Under Egypt's CDWS rules, recreational divers may go to 40 m only with deep certification, a qualified buddy and insurance for that depth, Emperor Divers explains. The roof of the Arch is 15 m below that line.

Nobody publishes an official death toll. Undercurrent wrote in 2017 that at least 40 scuba divers had died there since 1980. Egypt Independent, reporting the death of freediving safety diver Stephen Keenan at the Arch that year, said the site had claimed as many as 130 people in 15 years. In 2003 a local diver, Harry Hayward, told Divernet the toll was about 70 and that in peak season 'we were losing a diver a month'. Undercurrent lists the usual causes as losing track of depth, not staying close to the top of the Arch and nitrogen narcosis. SSI says most accidents were attempts to reach the bottom on a single tank.

The gas numbers explain it. At 55 m the pressure is 6.5 bar, so air gives an oxygen partial pressure (ppO2) of 1.37 bar, just under the 1.4 that DAN calls the accepted limit for the working phase of a dive. Air reaches 1.4 at 56.6 m, so sinking a metre or two below the roof crosses it. The same breath carries 5.1 bar of nitrogen, and DAN says narcosis on air is generally felt from 24-30 m (80-100 ft). Our nitrogen narcosis guide explains what that pressure does to judgement. Divernet's advice to anyone set on the Arch was to get technically qualified and use a twinset of trimix. Everyone else should stay inside the limit on their card; how deep can you scuba dive lists them by agency.

When is Dahab windiest?

In early summer. Windfinder's records from its Dahab station average 10 knots over the year, with gusts of 17 knots, mostly from the north-northeast. June is the windiest month at 12.6 knots (about 23 km/h), and around half of the June readings were Force 4 or stronger. February (8.1 knots) and November (8.3 knots) are the calmest. December is the odd one out: its average is moderate, but it logged more Force 7-8 readings than any other month.

That wind is why Dahab draws windsurfers and kiters. IKSURFMAG's kite guide says the wind funnels down the gulf and makes Dahab generally windier than Egypt's other kite spots, and that it blows on most days from March to November. Wikipedia calls the town world-renowned for windsurfing.

For divers, wind matters at the surface. Chop makes entries over shallow reef harder, and SSI says Eel Garden is only accessible at high tide when conditions are calm. Wind also chills a wet diver between dives: the PADI guest writer describes the cool breeze off the mountains once summer ends and advises a warm blanket for the night winds at Ras Abu Galum. In winter, pack a windproof layer for the surface interval.

Best month to dive Dahab for your goal

It depends on what you trade off. SSI's Dahab guide names March to June as the best time and September to December as comfortable. Reading the table by goal:

• Warmest water: August, at 27.6-28.3°C. July to October stays at 26°C or above on both datasets, but daytime highs of 30-37°C make carrying kit to shore entries hot work.
• Light wind with warm water: November. It averages 8.3 knots on Windfinder's data, about as calm as February, with the sea still at 25.0-25.7°C.
• Calmest and coolest: February, at 8.1 knots and 21.6-22.1°C. Bring a 5mm and a hood.
• Deep dives without a thermocline: February and March, when winter mixing reaches several hundred metres and the temperature at 30 m is close to the surface figure.
• Diving plus kiting or windsurfing: June to August, the windiest months in Windfinder's records.
• Visibility: the PADI guest writer passes on a report of 30 m in the Blue Hole at the end of November. Treat that as one observation, not a seasonal figure.

Dahab or the southern Red Sea?

Go south for warmer water and the offshore reefs; stay in Dahab for shore diving with deep water close in. On seatemperature.info's 10-year averages, Marsa Alam is 0.7°C warmer than Dahab in January and February and 1.9°C warmer in June and July. NOAA Coral Reef Watch's southern Egypt station, centred at 24.3°N 35.6°E, shows a wider gap on its late-1980s baseline: 1.2-2.5°C, largest in September. Sengupta and colleagues also note a higher average sea temperature in the central Red Sea than in the gulf.

If warm water decides the trip, the south wins in every month, and by the most from June to September. Its offshore parks, wrecks and day trips are covered in the Egypt guide linked at the top, and our destination guides cover other regions.

Dahab's case is access and depth. Most sites are a short drive and a walk from the water, with no boat schedule, and deep water starts close to shore. PADI's blog calls the Blue Hole a world-renowned training ground for freedivers, and technical divers go there for the Arch.