Sharm El Luli

Sharm El Luli is on Egypt's Red Sea coast south of Marsa Alam, at the edge of Wadi El Gemal National Park. A track leaves the coastal road and crosses several kilometres of bare desert to a bay of white coral sand.

The water is why it is here. The bay holds seagrass beds close to shore, and those beds feed dugong and green turtles that can be seen from the surface within a short swim of the beach — one of the more reliable places anywhere to encounter a dugong without a boat. The reef at the bay's edges is in good condition, and Wadi El Gemal protects a substantial stretch of this coast along with the Ababda communities who live in it.

The beach is fine pale sand with a gentle entry, unusual on a coast where the shore is more often coral rubble entered by jetty. There is no shade of any kind and no facilities beyond whatever a tour brings; the desert behind is bare and the summer heat is severe. The seagrass beds here are the reason for everything: they feed the dugong, shelter the turtles, and hold the sand in place.

Development is nothing. Day trips run from Marsa Alam, an hour north, and the resorts there are the practical base. Numbers at the bay have risen and behaviour around the dugong is the recurring problem: crowding an animal that must surface to breathe is harmful, and operators vary in how firmly they say so. Marsa Mubarak north of here has dugong too and is easier to reach, and Wadi El Gemal's inland section holds Ababda settlements and Roman emerald mines.

Dugong graze the seagrass a short swim from the sand, which is as reliable an encounter as exists anywhere. Keep well back — the animal has to surface to breathe and crowding it prevents that. No shade, no facilities, several kilometres of desert track, and Marsa Alam an hour north.