Al Lith

The dugongs arrive with the tide — slow, deliberate shapes moving through warm shallows so clear you can count the seagrass blades they graze on from a boat above. The Red Sea coast at Al Lith is where the Tihama desert plain meets the water with almost no transition — sand to shore to reef in a few strides. The marine life here has the advantage of being in a place most people have never heard of.

Al Lith is a small coastal town in Saudi Arabia's Makkah region, positioned where the Tihama coastal plain meets the southern Red Sea. The offshore waters are part of a marine reserve that protects one of the region's healthiest reef ecosystems, including populations of dugongs — one of the world's rarest marine mammals — along with sea turtles, manta rays, and diverse coral formations. Boat trips from the harbour pass through mangrove channels rich with birdlife before reaching the outer islands and reef systems. The town itself is small and undeveloped by comparison with the northern Red Sea resorts, and the diving and snorkelling here benefits from the absence of large-scale tourism.