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White Knight
On a "local North" day this is usually the first dive of the day that you make, and is usually done from a mooring line. There is only one "Shamandoura" (mooring) here, so there is a bit of a race to get there in time. By Sharm rules there is a maximum of 3 boats on any mooring, and anchoring to the reef is forbidden. So if three boats get there before you, you have to resort to a plan B.
There is a little speculation as to how this site became known as White Knight. One was that the corals reflect the white of the full moon and the other is that it is here that the Knights of the Templar used to come ashore in their boats. I will be honest, I have tried to research this, and not come up with anything a little more substantiated, so watch this space.
Unlike most mooring dives, where you swim away from the boat, and then back again, this dive is often done following a figure of eight route, as there is plenty to see on both sides of the line. Its main feature is a rather large canyon that slices down from the shallows into the depths below. It is the topography of this canyon that makes this dive special for me. At the shallow end, by the reef plate, there are two entrances to the canyon, one nice and open through which you can all swim easily, albeit single file, to prevent collisions, or via a little swim through right at the tip of the gulley. As you follow the canyon down, watch your fins, as the sloping sand is quite steep, and it is easy to stir up the visibility for those behind you. Also Open Water divers need to watch their depth as the slope drops away, they should hug the wall to the right, ensuring that they do not break their depth limits. The canyon is in two stages with the first bottoming out at 30M, and the second section of the canyon leading down to around 40M making it ideal for teaching the Deep Diver speciality course.
As you enter the canyon, take a moment to look back through the swim through, the light plays quite a cool effect here, with shafts of light shining down into the little shady cavern. As I said, it is the topography that is special here.
As we leave the canyon I start shallowing off immediately, no need to waste air hanging around too long at that depth, so I slowly multilevel up to around 10M, and gradually turn the dive around to follow the side of the canyon back towards our entry point. About half way there is a large salad coral on the other side of the canyon at 8m. It is very cool to swim back across the canyon at 8m, towards this salad coral and get a real sensation of what it would be like to fly over a valley.
Once you have taken in the life around the salad coral, there is also an eel garden to take in before heading back to either the mooring line, or if air allows, the snorkelling area which is adorned with pretty pinnacles in the shallows. A perfect place to end your dive.
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