The Red Sea vs the Maldives

Sharm El Sheikh may be the best value in world diving. From a base with hotels at every price, day boats reach Ras Mohammed National Park, where Shark and Yolanda Reefs drop into blue water past clouds of anthias, a resident Napoleon wrasse or two, and, surreally, the scattered cargo of toilets from the wreck of the Yolanda. The Strait of Tiran adds four current-brushed reefs in a morning, and the SS Thistlegorm, a Second World War freighter still packed with trucks and motorcycles, is a long day trip away. Visibility of 20 to 40 meters is routine, the water holds the low-to-high 20s °C across the seasons, and Europeans arrive on flights short and cheap enough for a long weekend.

The Malé atolls answer with animals and atmosphere. The diving is channel drift at its purest: hook in at a kandu corner on an incoming tide and watch grey reef sharks hold station in ranks, then spend the surface interval on a sandbank in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Mantas feed somewhere in the country every month of the year, whale sharks cruise the southern Ari region, and the sleep-aboard options run from local-island guesthouses to liveaboards to resorts of legendary excess. It costs more, usually much more, and the flight is longer from almost everywhere except southern Asia.

Wreck lovers, wall photographers, and anyone counting euros per dive go to Egypt. Divers buying a once-a-year immersion in pelagic theater, or traveling with a non-diving partner who has opinions about beaches, buy the Maldives.