Samadai Reef

Shaab Samadai, Dolphin House, is a horseshoe-shaped reef 1.4 km long and 1 km wide. The sheltered waters of the lagoon, to the south, serve as a resting area for a population of spinner dolphins. Like the spinner dolphins studied in Hawaii, they move offshore at night to forage and, by day, retreat to the sheltered reef to rest. In 2013, at least 480 dolphins were estimated to visit Samadai.

In the 1990s, Marsa Alam dive operators first began to notice a predictable group of spinner dolphins frequenting the reef, about 6 km offshore. From 2001, Samadai became the centre of a dolphin frenzy: in a single day it hosted up to 30 boats, anchoring directly on the reef, and 500 to 800 people. By the summer of 2003, as many as 500 to 800 tourists a day were brought to swim with the dolphins in the resting lagoon, with no regulation at all. In 2003 the government suspended all visits to the reef and, together with researchers, drew up a management plan implemented from 2004. The reef reopened to tourism in 2004 as a special dolphin preserve area and, by 2013, had received more than 208,000 visitors.

One of the coral blocks is streaked by a cave system. Pelagic species such as barracuda, manta, sharks and dolphins pass through, and the reef also has microfauna, soft and hard corals, colorful reef fish, parrotfish, clownfish, turtles and blue-spotted stingrays. The site can be dived all year round, but the dolphins are not always there; they may be seen from July to November.