Underwater Guide to the Red Sea The Best Diving & Snorkelling Sites with ID Guide to Reef Fishes, Invertebrates, Corals and Megafauna

This is a compact, portable guide, combining the elements of a dive guide, snorkelling guide and a marine wildlife guide. The design is very clean and attractive. It is written and photographed by Lawson Wood who has been prolific in publishing books on marine life. I suspect many keen divers or marine life enthusiasts will already have one or more books by him. As expected, the quality of the text and the images hit the mark. The Red Sea is one of the most famous and popular sites in the world with underwater enthusiasts. This book will be useful for those who are new to the site as well as to those who have been there and want to learn more. The first three chapters provide useful background. The very first which is an ‘Introduction to the Red Sea’ has a useful section on the Geography and Geology which I found very interesting. We learn that the Red Sea is an extension of the Great Rift Valley and how it became isolated giving rise to speciation. The second chapter is on ‘The Marine Environment’. It provides an easy bite-sized introduction to coral reef biology for holidaymakers who may try their hand at snorkelling or diving.

The third chapter is on ‘Diving and Snorkelling in the Red Sea’. This provides a wealth of useful practical information including health and safety, equipment, underwater photography and diving facilities. This section will be useful for those planning a visit. There is a chapter each, to dive sites and snorkelling sites. The dive site descriptions have some evocative first-hand accounts, good enough to entice people to take up scuba diving. The diving and snorkelling sites are preceded by a map showing the locations described in the text. Several countries have a border with the Red Sea. These are Eritrea, Sudan, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Nevertheless, we learn that one of the reasons for its richness is the near absence of commercial fisheries. A number of key dive sites receive a page each which provide key information on the site and what a diver can expect to see. The accompanying images either show the location if that is possible or some of the marine life to be seen at the site. Only a handful of snorkelling sites are described, but the book informs us that there are literally hundreds of safe snorkelling sites.

The final part of the book, almost half the length of the book, is the ‘Marine Life Identification’. With the fish alone adding up to over 1,200 species (with ten per cent endemic), this can only at best provide a flavour of what is to be expected. It does this very well with a fairly balanced overview of phyla and families. Invertebrates are introduced first: spanning sponges, jellyfish, corals, anemones, starfish, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, molluscs and crustaceans. A populist approach is taken to avoid the book feeling techy. For example, within the phylum for crustaceans, higher taxonomic divisions within it are simply labelled in everyday English, for example as crabs, lobsters & shrimps, copepods & sea spiders. The vertebrates include a sprinkling of turtles and cetaceans before moving on to the cartilaginous fish (rays and sharks) and finally to the bony fish where a number of families are included spanning a spectacular array of fish from fearsome-looking moray eels to stunningly beautiful anthias and parrotfish. The sections on the fish are a thumbnail identification guide with crisp photographs of six species per page with a few lines of text.

In conclusion, this is a handy guide with much of the information required by a visitor in a neat, portable guide. Hopefully, it will inspire travellers to take a deeper interest in coral reef life and open their eyes to the underwater world wherever they live in.