You'll time your visit with the tides, watching the sandbar emerge as the Mediterranean pulls back to reveal a walkable path stippled with small shells and stranded jellyfish. The crossing takes five minutes, water sloshing over your ankles even at the lowest point, until you step onto the island's rocky shore. Fauza Beach isn't a single beach but two—the western face catches afternoon sun and stays calmer, while the eastern shore takes the prevailing wind and develops small breakers that hiss against the pebbled strand.
“The tidal causeway creates a beach accessible only during specific hours, making each visit dependent on the moon's pull and the sea's rhythm.”
Person walking on a sand spit
The island's highest point barely reaches six meters above the waterline, topped with scrubby vegetation and the remains of an old fishing shelter reduced to stone corners. From here you can see the North Coast resorts marching eastward like white dominoes, and westward toward Marsa Matruh where the coastline begins its long curve toward Libya. Most visitors stay on the western beach, spreading blankets in the lee of the island's bulk where tamarisk shrubs provide minimal shade.
High tide transforms the island into a temporary exile, the causeway submerged beneath a meter of water. You'll need to swim back or wait six hours for the sand to reappear. Local families know the tide tables instinctively and plan accordingly, arriving at dawn and departing before noon. The water around the island runs deeper than the mainland shallows, attracting small schools of fish that scatter silver when you wade through them, and occasionally a sea turtle gliding past on its migration route.
