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Scuba Diving in Aqaba
Jordan's 27km Red Sea window: shore-dive wrecks, a sunken military museum, and warm, clear water year-round at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba.
Why here
Jordan's short Red Sea coastline packs an unusual density of purpose-sunk wrecks, and almost all of them are reachable from shore. The 74m freighter Cedar Pride, scuttled in the mid-1980s at the initiative of then-Prince Abdullah, lies coral-covered at around 25m with resident seahorses. A C-130 Hercules sits intact on the sand nearby, and since 2019 the Underwater Military Museum has lined up tanks, armored carriers, and a combat helicopter in battle formation on the seabed. The fringing reefs along South Beach sit inside the protected Aqaba Marine Reserve, water stays warm enough to dive comfortably in any month, and prices undercut the Egyptian resorts across the gulf.
Best months
Diveable year-round: water around 21C in late winter, 27C by September. Visibility peaks September to November. July and August are brutal topside but fine underwater. Spring and autumn are the sweet spot for combining Aqaba with Wadi Rum and Petra.
Getting there & around
Fly to Aqaba direct or drive four hours south from Amman. Dive centers cluster along the South Beach road toward the Saudi border and run shore entries or short boat hops. Wadi Rum is an hour away, which makes a desert-and-reef week easy to build.
Skill levels: beginner, intermediate, advanced
Schools & guides (2)
Arab Divers
SchoolArab Divers is a PADI IDC 5 Star resort established in 1998 by Captain Abdul Wahab Almaaitah, about twenty minutes outside Aqaba's center with over twenty dive sites a short ride away. Guided excursions and PADI courses run at every level, from Open Water through Rescue, specialties, tec diving, and Divemaster, alongside freediver and kids programs. The dive operation doubles as a small resort with twenty guest rooms and a shuttle to nearby snorkeling beaches.
Deep Blue Dive Center
SchoolDeep Blue is a PADI 5 Star certified dive center at the southern tip of Aqaba, inside the Tala Bay Resort near the shore. Divers can enter Yellowstone Reef and Blue Coral straight from the beach in front of the center, while its two boats, the 24-meter Deep Blue 2 and the 14-meter Deep Blue One, run scuba and snorkeling trips along the coast, with the Cedar Pride wreck featured on its blog. Courses cover nearly all PADI levels, from Discover Scuba Diving to Instructor.
Also good for scuba diving in September:
Torn between Aqaba and Galapagos Islands for September?
A plan settles it for your skill and budget, same-day.