Shaab Abu Nugar is a quite a large and t-shaped barrier reef and means “father of the pools”, which refers to its small and blue inner lagoons. There is a shallow plateau to the west with several small pinnacles and two smaller sub reefs named Gota Abu Nugar and Shaàb Iris. Some of the pinnacles have clustered together in the south and are named Erg Abu Nugar. The reef seems dead but the ergs make diving here worth it with all their life. It is a nice reef with plenty of fish, corals heads and coral. It has many types of soft and hard corals such as yellow and purple gorgonians, seafans, tablecoral and braincorals. Bottlenosed dolphins are frequent visitors here as well as parrot fish, turtles and all of the common reef fish in the Egyptian waters. Stone fish, octopus, glassfish, royal angelfish and broomtails are some exemples.