Sataya Reef is a horseshoe-shaped reef 30 Km south of Hamata and 50 Km north of Berenice, it is the main reef of the Fury Shoals, it is just the most beautiful reef I never saw in the Red Sea! Fantastic!….and not only because it is the playing garden of the spinner dolphins but also because the corals are huge and not broken! It is 12 years that I live part-time in Egypt and I saw the corals of the Red Sea going down and down every year due to the climate?… I am not sure but what I am sure it is due to the wild fishing and the tourists…. no respect or not enough informations to know how to protect this beautiful world? To see a place like Sataya Reef make sun in your heart!
To join Sataya Reef from El Quseir means to drive for 2 hours and half with a mini bus and 2 hours and half with a boat….. so it is really far! If you are lucky the sea will be calm….if not take half a tablet not to be seasick!… not too much like that you will not sleep during all the trip …the Sea is so beautiful!
We arrive in Sataya Reef and immediately we saw the dolphins….and not one or two but so many!!!
The books say that 200 Spinners are in the Lagoon! The spinner dolphin (Stenella longirostris – in French dauphin à long bec – in Italian delfino Stenella dal lungo rostro) is a small dolphin found in off-shore tropical water all around the world, the name is due to the acrobatic way of moving (spins) in the air when he jumps (to advise the other dolphins that there is fish to eat) or under water when he moves. The adults are long from 150 to 235 cm and their weight is between 25 and 80 kg. It is amazing to see in Sataya Reef so many babies Dolphins…Good that means they are healthy and the place is not polluted by too many boats and tourists. Usually the Spinners arrive in Sataya around 6 in the morning all together, they stay all the day there to play, to grow up the babies, to make love and in the evening around 5 pm they go out of the reef all together to hunt for food. They are not too much disturbed by the tourists (if the tourists are not hystericals and “run” to touch them)…. once there were 12 boats in the lagoon and so many snorkelers running after the dolphins…. it was terrible to see the tourists fighting to reach the dolphins…. but the dolphins are so clever….they bring the group of tourists out of the reef, in open sea….and they came quietly back inside!
the reef by another way…..I was looking their “cinema” from the boat and I laugh so much!!!!
Sataya lagoon is 5 km long and 2 km wide in the very south side of the lagoon you have a nice shallow plateau with coral gardens, in some spot the sea is so low that you can walk in the sand!.
