If you’re a Red Sea dive junkie, there’s one spot where you haven’t been allowed to visit the past few months. Not any more.
With a new directive in place by the Egyptian local government, divers can now return to the Brother Islands in the Red Sea.
The area was closed to liveaboard vessels from last December until this month in the wake of several incidents divers had with whitetip sharks, and those ships are now allowed back in the area under certain strict conditions.
The main condition — and the reason for why experts believe divers had those incidents with sharks — is a total ban of dumping any kind of organic waste inside a five-nautical-mile (9.26km) radius of those islands. So if those ships want to attract sharks, dumping waste won’t be one of the ways they do it from now on.
Officials have also capped the number of liveaboard vessels that can visit the islands at 18 per day, with no overnight stays and diving only allowed from 0600 to 1600 hours.
Check out DiverNet for all the other new rules now in place for the Brother Islands.
