Red Sea (Egypt)

The Red Sea has a split personality that keeps you permanently off-balance in the best possible way. North of Hurghada the wind tends to blow from the north-northwest almost perpetually, which means you beat hard going up the Gulf of Suez and run sweetly back down — plan your circuit accordingly.

South toward the Brothers Islands and Daedalus Reef the thermocline sharpens, visibility stretches past thirty metres, and you forget entirely that you are also sailing through one of the world's busiest shipping lanes. Watch AIS religiously at night; tanker traffic is relentless and their watch-keeping variable.

Charter bases cluster around Hurghada and, to a lesser extent, Port Ghalib further south, where provisioning is reasonable if unspectacular — bring your own spice rack and good coffee. Bareboat is available but most sailors choose skippered or liveaboard arrangements because local knowledge genuinely matters here: reef navigation is unforgiving, and the buoyage system has a reputation for optimism.

The Sinai coast offers spectacular anchorages like Ras Mohammed, Dahab, and the sheltered bight behind Sharm el-Sheikh, though bureaucratic check-ins between Egyptian governorates can chew a morning if your paperwork is anything less than immaculate.

Ashore, the contrast is half the point. You can anchor off a pristine reef at dusk, take a bus at first light, and be standing inside Luxor Temple by mid-afternoon. Bedouin tea in a Sinai canyon, then sundowners on the hook — few sailing grounds offer that kind of cultural density. Night passages between reefs demand sobriety, good charts, and a chartplotter you trust.

Come between October and April; summer brings brutal heat, northerly gales, and haze that flattens the scenery entirely.