The Anemone City / Shark and Yolanda Reefs

Part of the Ras Mohamed Natural Protectorate, Shark Reef and Yolanda Reef are two ergs (island-like coral formations not attached to the shoreline) atop a single pinnacle that rises about 800 meters from the seabed. The tiny Satellite Reef lies just to the west of the two main reefs, while to the northeast of the pinnacle's plateau is an area called Anemone City .

The site offers several options for drift dives. One route starts at Anemone City, allowing you to admire the colony of colorful, many-tentacled creatures for which it is named. Where there are Anemones, there are Clownfish, the orange and black striped fish made famous by the movie Finding Nemo. Clownfish are fiercely territorial; if you get too close, you might find one charging at your mask, thinking that its reflection is an intruder.

The Anemone City area is about 12-15 meters deep, a suitably shallow start for open water and advanced divers alike. To get to Shark Reef from Anemone City, you leave the pinnacle's plateau and swim with the current in 'the blue' (water without visual references like reefs or sandy bottom) for a few minutes at a depth of 20 meters.
Stay level with your dive guide and keep an eye on your gauges. This is one of the few times the divemaster will recommend not clearing your ears: Without walls or floor to orient yourself, increasing pressure on the eardrum is a valuable signal that you are inadvertently descending.

You can skip Anemone City , entering the water instead at Shark Reef where the slope is flush with the pinnacle wall. The best time to see the big fish is July and August, when you're likely to encounter dense schools of Barracuda, Trevally, Snapper and even the occasional Reef Shark.

Skirting Shark Reef, you come back to the plateau and the sandy saddle between the two ergs. Yolanda Reef rises from the other side of the gap barely noticeable during your dive, there is sometimes a cross-current flowing out to sea from between the reefs.

Yolanda's eastern slope is marked by several Gorgonian and table-like Acropora corals; the lacy fan-like skeleton of the Gorgonian at 15 meters is seen as a stunning silhouette in the light filtered from the surface. The reef is also covered in beautiful pinkish-purple Alcyonarians, soft corals that make you feel like you've stumbled upon an underwater flower garden. The first traces of the reef's namesake come into view as you round the slope to the west.

In 1980, the Cypriot container ship Yolanda was traveling to Aqaba with a load of hotel fixtures when it broke up on the reef during a storm. The vessel was partially submerged in an unstable position at about 25 meters until 1987 when another storm finished her off. Yolanda was pushed off the pinnacle and now rests on a ledge about 200 meters deep - well out of reach for the recreational diver.
You won't see the ship, but you will see a good portion of its cargo on the sandy bottom at about 17 meters. The mast lying on the southern slope marks the edge of a porcelain garden strewn with toilets, bathtub shells, closets and pieces of freight containers. Since this is a relatively young shipwreck, the coral growth is minimal. The Morays, with their love of tunnels and fissures, are particularly fond of the toilets.

The dive usually ends here with the six meter safety stop spent near the reef wall where you can find Lion Fish and some Coral Groupers. If you have enough air, you may fin over to explore the Satellite Reef, but you risk hitting the current that flows through the saddle between Yolanda and Satellite.