Sharm el-Sheikh tide times

Predictions: Open-Meteo Marine (MeteoFrance SMOC, 0.08° grid) — heights relative to MSL (not chart datum / LAT). Model-derived.

Model-derived from a global ocean grid. Useful indication; expect about ±45 minutes on average vs. a local harmonic gauge, individual stations vary widely. See /methodology for per-region detail. Not for navigation.

Conditions as of 11:00 local time. Refreshes daily.

Predictions: Open-Meteo Marine (MeteoFrance SMOC, 0.08° grid) — heights relative to MSL (not chart datum / LAT). Model-derived. · Not for navigation.

The angler tradition for major/minor fishing windows: major ≈3-hour windows around moon transit and opposition; minor ≈2-hour windows around moonrise and moonset. Times are Africa/Cairo local. Folk tradition, not a scientific forecast.

Last spring tide on Thu 30 Apr (range 0.6m). Next neap on Wed 06 May.

Spring tides cluster around new and full moons (biggest swings). Neap tides land on quarter moons (smallest swings). See the spring tide and neap tide glossary entries for the why.

Sharm el-Sheikh sits at the southern tip of the Sinai peninsula, where the Gulf of Aqaba meets the Gulf of Suez and the open Red Sea begins. The coast immediately south of the town reaches Ras Mohammed National Park, the headland where the two gulfs converge over the deep central Red Sea trench and where the fringing reef drops in a near-vertical wall to more than seven hundred metres of water. The park's signature dive sites — Shark Reef and Yolanda Reef on the same drift, the Anemone City coral garden, and the wreck of the Yolanda freighter that broke up on the reef edge in 1980 — sit along that wall and define a generation of Red Sea diving. North of the town, Naama Bay holds the older promenade and the shore-entry house reefs that built Sharm's reputation as a dive destination from the 1970s onward, and the Tiran Strait — the narrow throat at the entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba between the Sinai shore and the Saudi coast — sits a short boat ride to the northeast, with its four named reefs (Jackson, Woodhouse, Thomas, and Gordon) standing in the strait current. The tide here is semidiurnal — two highs and two lows roughly 12 hours 25 minutes apart — but small. Mean astronomical range at Sharm runs about 50 to 80 cm; spring tides around new and full moons push toward 90 cm to a metre; neaps compress to 30 to 40 cm. That is small by ocean standards but not negligible for a fringing-reef coast: the swing is enough to drain the inner reef flat at low water, expose the table corals at the reef-edge drop-off in places, and meaningfully change the shore-entry depth at the Naama Bay and Sharks Bay house reefs. The reef-flat exposure on a spring low at Ras Um Sid, the headland between Naama Bay and the Old Market, opens the shallow tidepool zone for a 90-minute window either side of the predicted low. The lighthouse at Ras Um Sid sits on the limestone bluff above the reef and is the reference landmark for the southern Sharm shore-dive line. Wind matters as much as the tide. The seasonal northerly that funnels down the length of the Gulf of Aqaba, accelerated through the Tiran Strait, modulates water level by tens of centimetres independent of the predicted swing — a sustained strong northerly stacks water against the Saudi shore and lowers level on the Sinai side. The Khamsin transition in spring and autumn brings stronger southerlies and the corresponding setup on the Sharm reefs. Dive-boat operations time slack water at Tiran around the change of tide, which gives roughly 30 to 45 minutes either side of the predicted high or low for low-current diving on the strait reefs. Outside that window the strait current can run hard enough to require a drift-dive plan; the Tiran reefs are not a beginner site at full ebb or flood. Shore anglers along the rocky points south of Naama Bay and at the Ras Um Sid headland target snapper, grouper, and Indian mackerel on the reef edge during the incoming tide. The Egyptian Hydrographic Department is the authoritative source for Red Sea and Gulf of Aqaba tide and water-level data and is the reference to consult for any dive operation, marina scheduling, or reef navigation in Egyptian waters. The predictions on this page come from Open-Meteo Marine, a gridded global ocean model. The model estimates tidal height across a geographic grid rather than computing from harmonic analysis at a calibrated gauge — accuracy is typically within plus or minus 45 minutes on timing and within roughly 0.2 to 0.3 metres on height. For a coast with a mean range under a metre, that uncertainty is a meaningful fraction of the total signal. Use the predicted rhythm for planning, and weight the Egyptian Hydrographic Department's gauge data and the local dive-operator briefing for any decision that depends on precise water level.