NicoleB Photography

Ras Mohamed (Head of Mohamed) Nature Preserve Park is located about
15km outside Sharm el Sheikh, direction to El Tur.

The official entrance gate to the park.
It spells the name “Allah” (regarding our tour guide).

The Park was declared a National park in 1983 with an area of 92km2.
Since then areas have been added and the park is now covering an area
of 480km2 (including Marine areas -> 345km2 and terrestrial areas -> 135km2).
At Ras Mohamed two different water masses are coming together.
The salty waters from the Gulf of Suez and the less salty waters from the Gulf of Aqaba.

A guided tour can be booked with various agencies all over Sharm el Sheikh
either by boat (approx. LE 160) to different snorkeling locations or by Bus
(approx. LE 120).

By boat you supposedly get to see more of the Coral reefs.

With the latter you get to see the Mangroves and the hidden lake close up.

Our guide explained that they got their name from dead bodies found their
in the 2nd World War, meaning “Man grave". I leave that one as it is.

The more believable part of his explanation was that the Mangroves grow in
the salty water, storing water in their roots, transferring the Salt out
via their leaves.
The Bedouins take the roots, break them open and drink the fresh water
that is stored in them.

I looked some information up in one of my guide books.
The Mangrove type that grows here is called Avicennia Marina and belongs
to the family of Rhizophoraceae. They have long roots that stick out of
the water and help them breathe

I personally expected the Mangrove area to be bigger, but it was
impressive nonetheless.
Wikipedia says the the Mangroves
cover an area of 2 hectares, guess we didn’t see that much of it.
Once again, checked my book and yes, the Mangrove area IS bigger.
You need to cross the Mangrove channel and you’ll see the so called Mangrove island.

There’s also a deep (14m) open crack that resulted from an earth quake 40 years ago.
There are underwater caves as well, due to earthquakes.

The hidden lake supposedly is not visible from the air. Not sure about
this piece of information either.

It must be very deep though, since it is very cold.
Plus, there are no fish or other animals in these waters.

I wasn’t very lucky with the birds today.
It was just the wrong time of the day.

Ras Mohamed plays a big role for migration birds though, serving as
a place for rest and nourishment.

If you don’t want to take a guided tour, you can always make a deal with
a local taxi driver to get you there and around and wait for you.

Don’t forget to bring your passport with a valid Visa, or you won’t be
able to get past the Check point!

The park must be left by sunset, unless you are camping.
Camping is allowed on one Site only in the park.
You can ask at the entrance gate where to get that permission.

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Sidenote:

Sites like > this one < point out that tourism, Photographers and
whoever else damage the area.
Which is undoubtedly right and everyone should respect the set boundaries
and act responsible.

Yet, there is trash found everywhere. More in some places than others.
Just a few examples:

Ras Mohamed is also a No fishing zone. Yet, there is plenty of illegal fishing going on.
The park Rangers only manage to arrest a few of the illegal fishermen, the ones that get away simply will come back a few days later.

Last a Bedouin that lives in the hills. His hut doesn’t have much, but it has Solar panels.