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.