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Few places along Egypt's Red Sea coast reward patience quite like Marsa Alam. Situated roughly 200 kilometres south of Hurghada, this small port town developed far later than its northern neighbours, and that relative youth shows in the clarity of its reefs, the quietness of its beaches, and the sense that the surrounding desert and sea have not yet been entirely rearranged for mass tourism. The Egyptian government designated much of the surrounding coastline and hinterland as protected territory, and the result is a stretch of the Red Sea that still feels genuinely wild in places.

The underwater world here is the primary draw, and it is built around a cast of creatures rather than simply coral formations. Abu Dabbab Bay is one of a very small number of places in Egypt where dugongs, those slow-moving, herbivorous relatives of the manatee, are sighted with any regularity. The seagrass beds that attract them also bring green sea turtles in considerable numbers, and a morning in the water at Abu Dabbab can feel less like a snorkelling excursion and more like an encounter with animals living entirely on their own terms. Further offshore, Sataya Reef, sometimes called Dolphin House, hosts a resident pod of spinner dolphins that use the sheltered lagoon as a resting ground. An overnight stay at Sataya allows visitors to be on the water at dawn, when the dolphins are most active and the light on the reef is at its most extraordinary.