Red Sea marine life calendar: what you can see near Hurghada, month by month

This table lists only seasonal events that a study, a protected-area factsheet or an official statement puts on the calendar. Wild animals don't read calendars: a month in the table means "more likely", never "guaranteed". Many studies cover the wider Egyptian Red Sea, not one reef, and some are years old; the dates are in the sources list.

Most of the reef life you see near Hurghada is there all year. That includes the coral reef itself, its fish and the Red Sea's own endemic species. Some animals are seasonal in numbers but are still recorded through the year:

• Reef fish and corals: present every month. Our Red Sea endemic fish guide lists the species found only here, and hard and soft corals explained tells you what you're looking at.
• Dolphins: the International Whaling Commission's Whale Watching Handbook lists Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins on Hurghada's coastal reefs, including Shaab El Fanous, Shaab El Erg, Abu Nugar and Umm Gamar, as "year round, peaks in summer". Spinner dolphins are listed for reefs off Marsa Alam such as Samadai. How to behave near them: our dolphin code of conduct.
• Sea turtles: a 2025 citizen-science study of injured and dead turtles found the highest boat-strike rates near Hurghada, the largest city in the study. That shows turtles use the waters here, though the study doesn't give months. More in our sea turtle guide.
• Reef sharks: the shark guide on the diving chamber's (CDWS) website calls the whitetip reef shark "common" on coral reefs and the grey reef shark "common" near drop-offs, with no season given. See are there sharks in Hurghada?
• Dugongs: HEPCA describes a resident dugong population at Marsa Abu Dabab, near Marsa Alam, far south of Hurghada, and says little is known about their numbers. See our dugong guide.

For nesting, it's summer, and the sources give different months. Turtles are recorded near Hurghada outside the nesting season too (see above), but no study we read gives a monthly sighting rate.

The sources also disagree about which turtles use the Giftun Islands off Hurghada. Hanafy names Small and Big Giftun as the most valuable hawksbill nesting beaches, and Mancini et al. also list Giftun with Shedwan as hawksbill sites. HEPCA's Giftun page calls the island the region's major nesting ground for green turtles. Artificial lighting on nesting beaches disorients turtles and hatchlings, so leave nesting beaches alone (see our sea turtle guide).

There is no proven manta or whale shark season near Hurghada. Both are occasional visitors, and most reports fall in late spring and summer.

• Sharm el Sheikh reefs: Divernet's resort guide says "from the months of May to September it is not unusual to spot the odd manta ray or whale shark" as they follow the plankton.
• Hurghada: after whale shark sightings in July 2017, Egypt's environment minister said their presence was "normal at this time of the year" and that they had appeared at the same time the year before. The July 2016 sightings were near the Giftun Islands, Shaab El Fanous and Port Ghalib (Ahram Online, 10 July 2017). That's two summers of reports, not a long-term count.
• Oceanic mantas: a 2022 study using divers' photos identified 267 oceanic manta rays from 395 sightings in the Red Sea between 2004 and 2021. Regular juveniles around Sharm el Sheikh point to a possible nursery there. The study summary we read gives no peak months.

We found no peer-reviewed month-by-month record of whale sharks or mantas in Egyptian waters. Many travel sites publish season charts, but they disagree with each other (April–August, May–July, May–September), so we haven't copied them.

October and November, for oceanic whitetips at the offshore reefs, according to the IUCN's Important Shark and Ray Area (ISRA) factsheets written with Red Sea shark researcher Dr Elke Bojanowski.

Many dive-travel pages give October to December, and some add a smaller spring season. The factsheets name only October and November. Because little research diving happens in winter, December may simply be under-recorded. The Brothers and Daedalus are liveaboard destinations from Hurghada. Elphinstone can also be reached by day boat from the Marsa Alam area. Read what divers should know about oceanic whitetips and what to expect on the Brothers, Daedalus and Elphinstone route before you book.

Off Hurghada, Acropora corals spawn in late April and early May, and some reef fish gather to spawn in spring and summer.

• Corals: a 2024 study (Osman et al.) combined 2023 surveys with records from 2002 to 2022. It found that Acropora spawning at Hurghada "typically occurs from late April (20th) to early May (8th), regardless of the full moon phase". In 2023 spawn slicks were seen on 28 April. In the central Red Sea the same corals spawned on the full moon, so Hurghada stands out. In Eilat, at the top of the Gulf of Aqaba, spawning is "delayed until summer".
• Spangled emperors: a 1999 University of York thesis (Salem) describes spawning gatherings from late April to early June at Jackfish Alley in Ras Mohammed, with another known site on the east side of Umm Gamar, north of Hurghada. Catches peaked in the middle of the lunar cycle. These are fisheries data from 1995–1998, so treat them as history, not a promise.
• Summer fish schools: Divernet describes Ras Mohammed's Shark and Yolanda reefs as "a hotspot for schooling snapper, barracuda, batfish and unicorn fish" in the summer months.

Coral spawning is a night event: in the same study, corals elsewhere in the Red Sea spawned between 19:30 and 23:30, so you won't see it from a day boat. Corals also suffered in recent marine heatwaves: see coral bleaching and the Red Sea.

Hurghada's own reefs, the dolphin reefs to the north and the islands are day-trip distance. Ras Mohammed, the offshore shark reefs and the far south take a liveaboard.

Liveaboards sail on set weeks, so ask us which weeks run in the season you want. Day trips and boat trips include hotel pickup from Hurghada, El Gouna, Makadi Bay, Sahl Hasheesh, Soma Bay and Safaga; the dolphin speedboat picks up in Hurghada. You pay in cash on the day, and you can cancel free up to 24 hours before. Marsa Abu Dabab's dugongs are not on any of our standard trips.