Diving Jordan

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Take the plunge... Scuba Diving is a rapidly growing sport. It is safe, exciting and brings enjoyment and amasement to millions of people world-wide. Aquatours offers three different dive centres in Aqaba. Scroll down to read about them...



	Just want the dive prices? Diving prices for all centres are listed here.

Cedar Pride wreckage. Photo by Heather Hammond.		SeaStar Watersports Dive Centre Seastar Watersports is the dive centre of the Alcazar Hotel, however the centre is based at the Alcazar Beach Club; 'Club Murjan'. This facility is located on the beach, just metres from the reef edge, and is about 15 minutes drive out of town from the Alacazar Hotel. The hotel runs a transfer bus between the Alcazar Hotel and Club Murjan. It is also suitable to use this centre if staying at the Golden Tulip, Aqaba Gulf, Radisson, Movenpick or Intercontinental Hotels in Aqaba. SeaStar and the Alcazar Hotel offer an ideal holiday combination. The Alcazar is a 'diver friendly' hotel with its own private beach club (Club Murjan). SeaStar offers escorted shore diving as well as boat diving, for those that prefer it. A full range of PADI training courses for both beginners and experienced divers wishing to advance their diving skills. All instructors are professionally qualified with PADI and/or BSAC.

			Below: Club Murjan pool - used for confined water training.

Divers meet at the Alcazar Hotel in the morning, and are transfered to 'Club Murjan' - about 15 minutes transfer. Two dives a day is the norm, with night dives arranged several times a week. Divers can return for lunch between dives, but it is usual to stay down on the reef edge at the beach club, Club Murjan. Sailing and windsurfing are also available from Club Murjan, and it offers some very good snorkelling too. Seastar currently dive more than 20 different and varied sites to suit all levels of experience. All sites start virtually at the waters edge and are easily accessed from the shore. A fast road connects the access points to the dive sites and even the most distant sites near the Saudi border can be reached within 20 minutes.

Dive Aqaba Dive Centre
Dive Aqaba is based opposite the Golden Tulip Hotel. It is also suitable to use this centre if staying at the Alcazar, Aqaba Gulf, Radisson, Movenpick or Intercontinental Hotels in Aqaba.

Dive Aqaba was founded in 2003 by two instructors that had been working in Aqaba for more than ten years. They have put all their experience together to create a state of the art, modern dive centre. Run by divers for divers - we don't just take you diving, we dive with you!

Dive Aqaba offers mainly boat diving although shore diving is also available if you prefer it. The diving is spectacular and the reefs are unspoilt by mass tourism and offer a huge variety of differing topographies and habitats. Now, with a complete ban on fishing in the marine park we are beginning to see more large pelagic fish returning.

Dive Aqaba is also able to cater for technical divers and offer DSAT Tec Deep Instructor Training courses, as well as extensive exploratory tec diving with our team. We provide custom divers wings, Apeks regulators and aluminium twinsets for rental, as well as deco gases up to 100% oxygen.

Techy

Above: Lunch time onboard the Laila 1 dive boat.

Must have taken a wrong turn I guess
Tank at Aqaba. Photo by kind permission of Heather Hammond.

Above & Below: Dive Aqaba's dive boat, the Laila 1.

Dive Aqaba are continually exploring and finding new sites, particularly in the technical diving range (over 40m). There are also 4 wrecks to dive, the most famous being the "Cedar Pride" and the most recent an American M40 Anti-aircraft vehicle. There is something for every diver.

Dive Aqaba normally dive from Laila One, our purpose built dive boat. She is owned by Dive Aqaba and berthed at the Royal Yacht Club. We also charter Yasmina, a 14m ex-tug boat converted for divers.

Visit Dive Aqaba's own web site now.
Click the logo or follow this link.

Royal Diving Club Dive Centre
The Royal Diving Club is based at the Coral Bay Hotel, 18km out of town. It is possible to use this centre if staying at the Alcazar, Golden Tulip, Radisson, Movenpick or Intercontinental Hotels in Aqaba.

This unique diving facility opened in 1990 and it recently had the addition of its own Coral Bay hotel which opened in late 2004. The Royal Diving Club is an excellent training facility in a perfect situation at the water's edge with a home reef right on its threshold! The Royal Diving Club is a purpose built complex with a private jetty, compressor room, equipment storage, lecture rooms, café, and large swimming pool with sunbathing area. You will be collected from your hotel each morning by the dive centre transport or can choose to stay on site at their new hotel.

As well as the home reef area immediately in front of the Royal Diving Club, there is an extensive and prolific reef stretching along the coastline on either side. Dive sites can be accessed by boat or from the shore.

AQABA DIVING PRICES 2008

	SeaStar Watersports	Dive Aqaba	Royal Diving Club
1 day / 2 dives (tanks, weight, air)	£24	£26	£24
5 day / 10 dives (tanks, weight, air)	£110	£130	£110
10 day / 20 dives (tanks, weight, air)	£210	£225	£210
Nitrox Fills	£6 fill	£5 day (2 fills)	-
Night dives (excluding torch hire)	2 dives from pack	2 dives from pack	pay locally
Snorkeller / Non-Diver on boat	-	£14 day	-
Full Equipment Hire	£8 per dive £72 for 10 dives	£13 per day	approx £8 dive paid locally

PADI Discover Scuba Diving (with full equip)	£46	£39	£33
PADI Open Water Course (with full equip)	£199	£189	£199
Open Water referral dives (4) (with full equip)	£129	£112	£115
PADI Advanced Open Water (with full equip)	£169	£135	£169
PADI Rescue Diver	£199	£169	£121 excl. cert fee
PADI Rescue Diver with EFR first aid course	£260	£210	£153 excl. cert fee

Full diving prices are shown on our downloadable Price Guide, found here. (Adobe PDF document).

Contact Aquatours now.


Aqaba Dive Sites - A brief guide to some of them. We have over 40 sites along our coastline, 37 of which are in the Aqaba Marine Park. There is a large variety of differing topography and differing habitats within a small area. This side of the Gulf we have lots of upwelling from the depths bringing nutrients to the reef and thus prolific marine life. The reefs are protected and unspoilt. New sites are continuing to be found, particularly in the technical diving range (over 40m). There are also 4 wrecks to dive, the most famous being the "Cedar Pride" and the most recent an American M40 Anti-aircraft vehicle. There is something for every diver.
	FIRST BAY: Only twenty minutes from Aqaba town, and situated next to the Marine Science Station, this a shallow fringing reef with very prolific coral and fish life, the reef starts at 2m and extends down to 30-40m and beyond. There is a small area of upwelling which attracts shoaling fish. Sea bass, shoals of fusiliers, schools of squid and octopus are common making this an excellent site for photographers. This is considered a more advanced dive site. BLACK ROCK: This site provides very easy access and is ideal for snorkelers and anyone who is new to the area, as a coral garden starts just below the surface and extends outwards for approximately 30m when it drops away steeply. The reef is prolific with a wide range of fish and is regularly visited by turtles.

WRECK - CEDAR PRIDE: The 'Cedar Pride' is is a Lebanese freighter sunk in 1986 at the wishes of Prince Abdulha, King Hussain's son as an attraction for divers. She lies 150m offshore and is approx. 80m long by 20m wide. Lying on her port side across two reefs in a depth of 12-27m. It is possible to pass under the hull of the ship which lays across two reefs. She has been rapidly colonised by soft corals and is home to several large sea bass, Grouper can often be spotted and she is patrolled by a shoal of barracuda! Martin Edge (Diver Magazine) called this one of the worlds best wreck dives. WRECK - TAIYONG: Discovered in 2004 by the Aqaba Technical Diving Team, this wreck lies at around 50m at the edge of the marine park. Covered now by a fantastic display of deep water gorgognias and black corals, this barge was scuttled in late-1999 and has been dived only by a handful of divers. The photographic possibilities here are superb. WRECK - TARMAC FIVE: This wreck was scuttled in 1996 after Alcatel had finished laying the electrical cables to Egypt. She lies not far from the Cedar Pride and when she went down she landed over the corner of an old sunken fishing boat that has been there since the 70's. Although the wreck itself is not much to look at it is host to a good variety of marine life, Blue Spotted stingrays, frogfish and a good deal more. The inside is full of banded coral shrimps!! Take a tour around here when you are diving the Cedar Pride. Do this at the beginning of you dive as it is deeper than the Cedar Pride. WRECK - THE TANK: This an American M40 Anti-aircraft tracked vehicle, originally in employ of the Jordanian Army it was scuttled as an artificial reef on September 1st 1999 by the Jordanian Royal Ecological Diving Society and has since accumulated a lot of marine life. Some reports in the diving press that it was Russian came from ill informed visitors. If you check out the compressed air start tanks at the back of the engine bay they are marked with a working pressure in psi. Russian would be bar or kilopascals. Anyway we have the report from JREDS and the Jordanian Army. It is now a popular snorkeling and diving attraction.

OSAMA'S REEF: Between the wreck and the shore and just off the starboard bow lies a reef sloping downward from 10m to 24m with a drop off on one side. Here can be found a profuse and wide range of corals and fish life, including larger pelagic species which approach the reef to feed. This site can be combined with the wreck, but there is rarely time to explore more than a fraction of the reef and so this site is worthy of a visit of its own. GORGONE ONE: This is a relatively shallow site, generally (10m) though is named after a large gorgonian fan coral which is at 16mtrs. This site has splendid examples of massive coral formations, including a 'lettuce coral' the size of a small house. There are lots of rock pinnacles smothered in fish life, with a large range of both hard and soft corals. Throughout most of the year one of these pinnacles is covered in Lion fish which gather in huge numbers to hunt for fry. I have never failed to count less than twenty! This as you might expect is a photographers paradise. A ideal site for second dives. EEL CANYON: This site is aptly named and provides a dramatic dive with lots of variation in invert life, it has the advantage of lots of large coral outcrops which offer a variation in depth and contour. BLUE CORAL: Fingers of coral extending at right angles to the coast. Covered with a profusion of fish and coral life. You also will not have to look very hard to discover the abundance of small, gray morays. This site also has the rare fluorescent anemones, but be warned they look muddy brown if photographed with a strobe. SAUDI BORDER: (The Drop Off) So called because it is just that, you could swim into Saudi Arabia from here, but don't try it! The top of the reef starts at 5m with patch reef and the reef top itself extends approx. 30-40m seaward at a depth of 10-20m. At this point a wall of living coral drops down to 50m and beyond. There are small caverns at 30m and large plate corals abound. At around 40m a large Grouper is to be found hiding behind a rock pinnacle. Along the reef edge it is common to see turtles. The sand is home to some large rays and deep water shoaling fish, such as Jack and Tuna can be seen. If you are very lucky you may even see a shark, again a camera is a must. A more advanced dive and very rewarding. POWER STATION: Here the reef drops from the surface to 5mtrs then slopes to 12mtrs before dropping vertically to 200mtrs in a sheer wall. Swimming along the edge of the wall offers spectacular views and large pelagic species make this their hunting ground. Soft corals abound as nutrient rich waters gently flow along the wall. This dive requires good buoyancy control and offers some spectacular coral outcrops with huge numbers of fish. The dive can be completed in shallow water between 12 and 5 metres, where an abundance of varied hard corals each with its attendant species, keep divers entertained. PARADISE: A gentle slope with patch corals leads to a pinnacle and cave at the edge of a wall in 30M. Working back up to the south we encounter soft coral gardens at 10-15 metres. Stingrays and eagle rays are common in this area. OLIVERS CANYON: Swim out to 12 metres where the reef starts with a gully dropping down to 30M. The top of the reef is covered in table corals, where Scorpion, Stone and Crocodile fish abound. This is only a brief guide to some of the sites that Jordan has to offer - there are many more. Jordan has yet to be discovered by mass tourism and so these sights are relatively little dived. Perhaps this is why Jordan is chosen by so many of the worlds top photographers for competitions and that special photograph.