Rainbow Reef

Best Night Dive

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True name Rainbow Reef
Depth 6m to 25m+
Conditions Best at night
Visibility Very good (15-20m)
Platform Shore (boat unnecessary)
Level Beginner to advanced
Snorkelling? No
Other names used Cable Reef
Rainbow Reef

Rainbow Reef

This one's easy to find, so we'll gear up on shore at the divers' platform, and head straight out for a very short swim to 6 m depth. We've already reached the end of the "rainbow"! Now it's a simple matter of following the reef contour down to about 18 m, where we'll turn north for an impressive wall diving experience.

Rainbow Reef | Aqaba-Jordan-Red Sea
Rainbow Reef is easy to find - when you see the telecoms cables, you know you're in the right spot.

We cruise serenely over sand with 4 telecommunications cables (laid in 1996 between Jordan and Egypt), running below us and coral walls on either side. The northern wall of this site is actually a thriving artificial reef, constructed to protect those cables and home to a wide variety of wildlife.

Rainbow Reef | Aqaba-Jordan-Red Sea
Is this a sponge-encrusted coral head, or an ancient dragon?

Everything we would have missed during the day is active now - we see octopi, crabs, shrimp, lobsters, and other invertebrates hunting and picking away at the reef, unafraid of their daytime predators who sleep hidden away within the reef.

Rainbow Reef | Aqaba-Jordan-Red Sea
These are definitely coral heads.
Rainbow Reef | Aqaba-Jordan-Red Sea
Like most of Aqaba, Rainbow Reef's crystalline waters are home to a huge diversity of marine life.

Morays and lionfish actively scour a reef peppered with Spanish Dancers and other nudibranchs - all between a spiny forest of feather stars in every colour of the rainbow, waving in the gentle current.

Araba Divers
It's a photographer's dream dive in the Red Sea...

If we dive here during the day, we'll see a huge assortment of fish life including a variety of parrotfish, butterfly fish, wrasse, and scorpion fish. Eagle rays provide a graceful backdrop for the bustling reef.

It's beautiful in the daytime, too, but really - this is Aqaba's most popular night dive site for a reason.

Rainbow Reef | Aqaba-Jordan-Red Sea
... and Rainbow Reef is Aqaba's most popular night dive site for very good reasons.

SHOW THIS SITE ON MAP

Arab Divers

CHOOSE THE REEF FROM THE LIST

Please, choose one of the reefs to see its location on the map, or browse through all the reefs below

  • Power Station

    Best Wall Dive

    Just offshore and directly in front of Aqaba's electricity plant - the Power Station - we find a colourful reef of small hard corals in only a few metres of water. Growth quickly increases in size and shifts to massive soft-coral formations as we follow the reef's gentle slope downward. Around 30m, the bottom drops away...

  • First Bay North

    Best Boat Dive

    It's hard to miss this one - you can see it from shore. We'll need to be careful of the fire corals as we enter this sheltered site right next to Aqaba Marine Reserve. We're immediately treated to a stunning variety of sights, and it only gets better...

  • First Bay South

    Best Drift Dive

    We could dive this site from shore, but let's take a boat - it's easier. First Bay South's topography is highly varied, so we'd end up swimming out to the mooring buoy to get oriented anyway. Heading down the line, we see an undulating, kaleidoscopic reef and some kind of a rope running along the bottom...

  • Ras Al Yamanya

    Best Eel Garden

    As we make our descent over a thriving seagrass bed prowled by lionfish, scorpionfish, and several species of seahorse, we'll quickly discover how this site gets its nickname...

  • Underwater Military Museum

    Best Wreck Dive

    The unique Underwater Military Museum offers a journey through 60 years of Jordanian Armed Forces history. Dive along the display in battle formation, acompanied from schooling reef fish inhabitating their new homes...

  • King Abdullah Reef

    Best Royal Diving

    This site, named after King Abdullah II, offers some of the finest diving in the Northern Red Sea. Since the reef starts several hundred meters offshore, we're best to take a boat here - but we'll need to moor outside the central reef, as it's a magnificent coral atoll surrounded by shallow hard corals...

  • Black Rock

    Best Private Beach

    This site gets its name from the black rocks scattered in front of the reef, near the shoreline - we'll use those as entry markers and follow the sandy bottom down to the reef at 12m, where a true underwater kaleidoscope awaits...

  • Cedar Pride Shipwreck

    Best Wreck Dive

    It's rare to see such a photogenic shipwreck so close to shore - you can even see her from the surface! Would you like to dive down to the Cedar Pride, or watch her fade in from the blue? Either approach is equally impressive as the 35-year-old shipwreck is truly a sight to behold...

  • Japanese Gardens

    Best Snorkel Site

    Not too far off the Cedar Pride, this site gets its name from its many large coral heads which some say resemble ancient Japanese pagodas. But they're far from the site's only attraction. Following a short swim over grass, accompanied by morays and scorpionfish, you'll arrive at a pinnacle at about 10m. That's where the show really begins...

  • Taiyong Shipwreck

    Best technical Wreck Dive

    Taiyog translates to ""Sunrise"", following the sloping bottom in Japanese Garden, she will rise out of the blue beyond recreational depths, showing her beauty only to the experienced technical diver...

  • Gorgon I

    Best Chance for Turtle

    A Gorgon is a mythical creature with hair made of living snakes (the most famous one is Medusa). Guess where gorgonian corals got their name? This site is one of a pair and takes its name from the single, massive gorgonian fan coral waving imposingly over a thriving reef that extends beyond of sight...

  • Gorgon II

    Best Gorgonians

    You'd never know this was part of the same reef as its sister site, Gorgon I - that is, until you notice the same striking fan corals protruding defiantly from the surrounding reef. There's plenty to see before we get that far, though, and this site offers some very different topography from her Gorgon sister...

  • Seven Sisters

    Best Girls in Aqaba

    This site's every bit as spectacular as the clusters of stars (and related ancient legends) from which its name is derived. With 7 main pinnacles and another side cluster to explore, all in under 10m of water, there's so much life to see here and, due to its shallow depth, so much time to see it that both novice and veteran divers often enjoy long, repetitive dives here with a different story to tell each time...

  • The Tank

    Best Safety Stop

    Back in 1999, the Jordanian Royal Ecological Diving Society set their eyes on a big prize: an M42 "Duster" anti-aircraft tank. And they got it. Thankfully, instead of using it to enforce diving regulations, they had the military clean and scuttle it, creating an unusual and thriving artificial reef for snorkelers and divers...

  • New Canyon

    Best Crack Underwater

    This deep, coral-walled canyon was discovered after the Aqaba Earthquake in 1983. Keep a sharp eye out - life here is vibrant at all levels of the food chain and changes with depth, thriving on an ancient fossil reef that descends to 35m before dropping suddenly into the open blue...

  • C-130 Hercules Aircraft Wreck

    Best Airplane Dive

    One of the main attractions for the divers and visitors to the South Beach from all over the world: The C-130 Hercules was officially scuttled in 2017. The sunken aircraft is close to shore in shallow depth, snorkelers and diving newbies can enjoy this fascinating wreck...

  • Eel Canyons

    Best Moray Encounter

    There's no way you could call this site anything else. You'll see dozens of garden eels poking out of their holes in the sandy bottom between large coral heads. And don't forget the 'S' on 'canyons'! A labyrinth of fossil reef ravines swarming with life awaits us - we'll start at the oil drum marker and dive into (or over) the underwater jungle...

  • Al Shorouk Shipwreck

    Best Tec Dive

    She almost ended up at extreme depth, but luckily the Al Shorouk's 2008 scuttling ended up going pretty close to plan. This pristine wreck now lies on her starboard side, straddling two reefs just beyond Eel Canyons with a marker buoy attached to her bow. Although the water here is exceptionally clear, that's all we can see for now - let's descend into the blue...

  • Yellowstone Reef

    Best National Park

    Named after the national park in the United States (due to the large, yellowish pinnacle visible from the surface), Yellowstone Reef is mostly popular as a being a deep, tec dive site. The tallest of her massive pinnacles is visible from the surface - but much more striking topography awaits us in the blue...

  • Blue Coral

    Best Deep Dive

    Covering this large, varied, and very healthy set of 3 finger reefs in a single dive is just about impossible. You could easily use your whole tank exploring a single coral head for frogfish, crocodilefish, and nudibranchs, surrounded by fusiliers - but there's always something new just ahead, and the reef extends well beyond sight...

  • Kiwi Reef

    Best out of New Zealand

    Recently discovered by (and named for) a New Zealander on vacation, Kiwi Reef offers a variety of dive conditions and life, making it a favourite for explorers, photographers, and students alike. Experience a unique ecosystem at each of over a dozen pinnacles rising from the seagrass, or head offshore to explore the main reef...

  • Moon Valley

    Best Desert Underwater

    With its density of red soft corals punctuated by bright blue branches and gradual, sloping reef, it's easy to see why this site takes its name from a famous desert valley in Wadi Rum. The resemblance ends here - as we begin our descent we're immediately surrounded by life, large and small...

  • Coral Garden

    Best Shallow Dive

    This looks more like a coral forest than a garden! The topography here is somewhat flat but the coral and fish life is diverse and colourful...

  • Paradise

    Best Divers Heaven

    If you're into wall diving, this is your spot. We'll need to gear up in the boat here, as shore access is blocked by a new resort. But that's OK - the mooring buoy puts us right over the dive site for a simple descent down the line into open-sea paradise...

  • Lockheed L-1011 TriStar Wreck

    Best Wreck Dive

    What is better than one airplane wreck? Two! When the C-130 airplane wreck leaves you hungry for more, you can continue with a Diving Boat trip in Aqaba and visit the big sister...