August in Amman is damned hot, so where do we go on holiday? To Aqaba where it's even hotter! Aqaba has one big advantage though. It's by the sea - the Red Sea which is fantastic for diving and that's why we went. We stayed three nights in Aqaba at the Al Cazar Hotel and then another night camping in the amazingly beautiful Wadi Rum before heading back up north.
There are plenty of dive sites all along the coast south of Aqaba. Most are shore dives and very easy but are best accessed by boat. We went with one of the best dive operators in Aqaba - Dive Aqaba. Diving is not cheap here (it cost us almost $100 per person for two dives per day plus a really nice lunch and soft drinks) but the sites are great. No really outstanding things to see but the visibility was the best I have seen anywhere with the possible exception of the Great Barrier Reef. I'm not good on judging visibiity but it was crystal clear way beyond 30m.
One of the best sites is the wreck of the Cedar Pride. It's all in one piece and in less than 20m of water. We saw plenty of Porcupine fish, Lion fish, Moray Eels, Puffer fish and Jewel Fairy Basslets on all the dives here, as seen below.