First Time Scuba Diving in Sharm el Sheikh: From Holiday Dive to Way of Life

Trying scuba diving for the first time needn’t mean committing to a full certification course. In Sharm el Sheikh, complete beginners can choose from anything between a 2-hour pool introduction and a full SSI Open Water Diver certification completed during their holiday.

40 years ago, starting to scuba dive usually meant making a decision.

There were introductory experiences, of course, but learning to dive generally required a greater investment of time, commitment and, eventually, equipment. For many of the people who entered the sport, taking those first breaths underwater was not simply another activity to fit into a holiday. It was the beginning of something they expected to continue.

At Camel Dive Club, we have had a front-row seat to the way that relationship has changed.

We opened our doors in Naama Bay in 1986, when Sharm el Sheikh was still taking its first steps towards becoming one of the world’s great diving destinations. In the 40 years since, we have introduced generations of people to the Red Sea and watched the route into scuba diving change with them.

Today, learning to dive on holiday is easier to fit into your life than it has ever been. You can start with a few hours in the pool, spend half a day discovering what the Red Sea looks like from below the surface, earn an entry-level certification in a couple of days or complete an SSI Open Water Diver course during your holiday in Sharm el Sheikh.

You no longer need to decide that you want to become a diver before discovering what diving actually feels like.

You can simply start with curiosity.

Perhaps the biggest change is not that scuba diving has become easier. Breathing underwater still requires proper training, good technique and respect for an environment in which we are visitors.

What has changed is the threshold for entering it. Modern scuba equipment is more comfortable and intuitive. Digital learning allows some of the theory to be completed before travelling. Training is increasingly modular, allowing people to choose an introduction that matches their available time and confidence rather than committing immediately to a complete diving course.

At Camel Dive Club in Sharm el Sheikh, someone completely new to diving can begin with SSI Try Scuba, spending their first couple of hours learning basic skills and becoming comfortable with scuba equipment in our dedicated training pool. Those ready for more can take the next step into the Red Sea with SSI Basic Diver, a half-day session with real open-water diving, while an SSI Scuba Diver course offers a first certification over 2 days. And for those who already suspect that one dive is unlikely to be enough, the SSI Open Water Diver course can turn a holiday in Sharm el Sheikh into the beginning of a worldwide diving life. There is a path now, rather than a leap. And that matters. 

Course	Duration	Max depth	Minimum age
SSI Basic Diver	Half a day	12 m	10 years
SSI Scuba Diver	2 days	12 m	10 years
SSI Open Water Diver	3 days	18 m	10 years

For a long time, scuba diving carried a certain image of toughness. Even today, first-time divers sometimes arrive at Camel wondering whether they will be brave enough, fit enough or somehow naturally “good” at diving.

None of those is the right question. A good first scuba diving experience should be progressive. You need time to understand the equipment, discover what breathing through a regulator feels like and learn a few basic skills before anything else happens. Some people put their face in the water and immediately look as though they have been waiting their entire lives to do it. Others need 10 minutes. Some need longer.

After 40 years, we can confidently say that there is no prize for being the fastest. This is one of the reasons we have always believed in personal attention and a maximum of 3 students per course at Camel. Your first underwater experience should move at your pace, with an instructor beside you and enough time to turn something unfamiliar into something enjoyable. Because the first lesson scuba diving teaches you is perhaps the most useful one: slow down.

Greater accessibility has opened the underwater world to far more people. That is something worth celebrating. But it has also changed our relationship with diving. The way we travel has evolved. Many of us now want to experience more during a single holiday. A week away might include snorkeling, hiking, a desert excursion, great food, a day on a boat and, somewhere on the list, trying scuba diving for the first time.

For some people, that first dive will remain exactly that: a wonderful experience they wanted to have once. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. It is simply different from the way many divers traditionally entered the sport. Learning to dive once often meant becoming a diver. One course led to another. Equipment gradually accumulated at home. Diving friends multiplied. Holidays began mysteriously migrating towards coastlines with warm water and healthy reefs.

Eventually, choosing a destination without checking the diving first started to feel slightly irresponsible. Today, we may be moving towards a diving community with more people who have experienced scuba, and more certified divers, but proportionally fewer people who build their lives and travels around it.

We do not think the answer is to make diving harder to enter again. Quite the opposite. The challenge for the diving industry is to make that first, accessible experience meaningful enough for people to understand that there is much more waiting beyond it.

There is a difference between adding scuba diving to a list of holiday activities and trying it somewhere that has been built around diving.

Camel Dive Club, in Sharm el Sheikh, was founded by divers for divers. Our dive centre came first. The hotel, restaurants, bars and the rest of the Camel experience grew around a community that was already forming here in Naama Bay. 4 decades later, diving is still not an activity we happen to offer alongside everything else. It remains the reason the place exists. 

That makes for an interesting experience when you are learning to dive at Camel. While you are taking your first breaths in our training pool, somebody nearby may be preparing for their 1,000th dive. At breakfast, you might find yourself next to a guest planning the day’s diving at Ras Mohammed or the Straits of Tiran. Back at Camel in the afternoon, conversations drift naturally towards what was seen underwater that morning.

Our instructors and guides have made the Red Sea their working life. Many of our guests have been returning to Sharm el Sheikh for years. You do not need to become one of them. However, for a few days, you get to discover what being one of them feels like, and, sometimes, that is enough to change the story.

We have watched it happen many times since 1986. Someone arrives wanting to try scuba diving on holiday. Perhaps their partner already dives. Perhaps they have always wondered what it feels like to breathe underwater. Perhaps the Red Sea finally makes the temptation impossible to ignore. They try it.

Then comes the question every instructor loves hearing: “When can I go again?”

One experience becomes a diving course. A course becomes a certification. The next holiday somehow involves diving too. Then comes another destination, another course, perhaps the first piece of personal equipment. For some, the journey goes much further. Over the years, we have watched people progress from complete beginners to experienced divers and, sometimes, all the way to becoming diving professionals themselves.

Not everyone will. Nor should they have to. The person who tries scuba diving once and never does it again deserves exactly the same care, patience and attention to safety as the person whose first dive turns into a lifetime underwater. We simply cannot know which one is standing in front of us yet.

For those who do want to continue, today’s route into scuba diving allows the decision to happen gradually. At Camel, SSI Try Scuba offers the simplest introduction, with your first experience taking place in our training pool under the direct supervision of an instructor.

The SSI Scuba Diver course takes the experience further. Completed over 2 days, it leads to a recognised certification allowing you to dive to a maximum depth of 12 metres under the direct supervision of a diving professional.

The SSI Open Water Diver course is the next big step. Over 3 days at Camel, digital learning is combined with pool training and 4 open-water dives in the Red Sea. Successful completion qualifies you to dive with a buddy to a maximum depth of 18 metres.

It is a remarkably compact route into a sport that can stay with you for the rest of your life. And perhaps that is the real achievement of modern scuba training. Making the beginning shorter has not made the journey smaller. It has simply given more people the opportunity to start it.

The equipment has changed. Training has changed. Sharm el Sheikh has certainly changed since Camel Dive Club opened in Naama Bay in 1986. The people arriving at our dive centre have changed too.

Some come determined to earn their SSI Open Water certification. Some have a diving partner and have finally decided to discover what all the fuss is about. Others simply want to try scuba diving in the Red Sea while they are on holiday. We welcome all of them, because whatever happens afterwards, every diver begins in essentially the same place.

You put on equipment that still feels slightly strange. You listen to an instructor explaining something that will soon become completely natural. You put your face beneath the surface. You breathe, and for a moment, the world becomes very quiet.

Whether you come back up having ticked something wonderful off your bucket list or having accidentally discovered the passion that will shape the next 40 years of your holidays is entirely up to you. We have seen both happen. Quite often, we see the second.

Start your scuba diving journey at Camel Dive Club in Sharm el Sheikh. From SSI Try Scuba and Scuba Diver to the full SSI Open Water Diver course, our multilingual instructors, dedicated training pool and maximum of 3 students per course give you the time and support to discover the Red Sea at your own pace.

First of its kind. Still one of a kind. Red Sea, 1986.