Wreck Diving from the Red Sea Coast: What Lies Beneath

Thirty metres down, off the harbour approaches of Hurghada, the guns of a warship still point at the surface. El Mina, a Soviet-built minesweeper serving in the Egyptian navy, was sunk in an Israeli air attack in February 1970, during the War of Attrition, and has lain on her port side ever since. The hull is largely intact. The gun mounts are still recognisable under their coat of coral, and clouds of glassfish drift through gaps where the crew once stood watch.

This is Hurghada's house wreck — close enough to town that day boats reach it without heroics, deep enough that it is not a dive for a fresh entry-level card. It also sets the tone for wreck diving on this coast generally: these are real ships with real histories, some violent, some tragic, and the diving culture around them runs from playground to pilgrimage. Knowing which is which matters.

A shipping lane with teeth

The northern Red Sea narrows into the Strait of Gubal, the funnel through which everything bound for the Suez Canal must pass. Reefs sit low in the water there, and lighthouses came late. The result is one of the densest concentrations of shipwrecks in recreational diving.

Sha'ab Abu Nuhas, a reef near Shadwan Island at the mouth of the strait, collected at least four of them: the Carnatic, a P&O steamer lost in 1869; the Giannis D, a Greek freighter that hit the reef in 1983 and now lies photogenically broken at around 25 metres; and two other cargo ships lost within a few years of her, one remembered for its hold full of floor tiles, the other for its lentils. More than a century of shipping losses within a few hundred metres of each other. Most divers meet Abu Nuhas from a liveaboard; some operators run it as a long day trip from El Gouna or Hurghada when the weather allows, and the crossing can be rough enough that "when the weather allows" is doing real work in that sentence.

Further north, on the Sinai side of the strait, sits the most famous wreck in the Red Sea and arguably the world: the SS Thistlegorm, a British armed merchant ship bombed in 1941 with a hold full of war supplies — trucks, motorcycles, rifles, even locomotives. Sailors died in the attack, and the ship deserves the respect due a war grave, heavily dived though she is. From the mainland coast she is realistically liveaboard territory; day boats mostly run from Sharm el-Sheikh. If you are based in Hurghada or El Gouna and the Thistlegorm is the dream, plan a mini-safari rather than hoping a day trip materialises.

The Salem Express

Then there is the wreck near Safaga, and it belongs in a different category altogether.

In December 1991 the Salem Express, a roll-on/roll-off passenger ferry returning from Jeddah — many aboard coming home from pilgrimage — struck a reef at night in bad weather and sank within minutes. Official figures put the dead at around 470; many people on this coast believe the true number was higher. This was not a distant maritime event but a local catastrophe. Safaga buried its dead in a dedicated cemetery, and families there still carry that night.

The ship lies on her starboard side in about 30 metres of water, shallow enough at the top that almost any certified diver could physically reach her. Whether one should is a question divers here answer differently, and both answers are legitimate. Some operators dive the Salem Express as an act of remembrance, briefed carefully and dived quietly. Some will not put divers on her at all. What nearly everyone agrees on: this is a memorial, not an attraction. Going inside is widely considered disrespectful — personal belongings remain, and not everyone aboard was recovered. Take nothing, touch nothing, save the posing for another site, and if your guide asks for a slow, silent pass along the hull, that is the whole plan. We keep meeting divers who describe it as the most sobering dive of their lives. That is the correct outcome.

Decide before you book whether it is a dive you want to make, and ask the operator how they handle it. Their answer will tell you a lot about the operator, too.

Depth, cards and common sense

Almost none of this is beginner diving. The named wrecks of the northern Red Sea mostly sit between 20 and 32 metres, at or beyond the standard depth limit of an entry-level certification. Most operators will expect an advanced-level card or will fold the deep training into the trip. Going inside any wreck — beyond open swim-throughs, and even those judged case by case — is an overhead environment that calls for wreck-speciality or technical training, a guide who knows the ship, and redundancy you hope never to use. Silt, sharp steel and a ceiling change the risk arithmetic completely.

Requirements differ between operators and training agencies, so confirm what your certification actually covers before money changes hands.

The reefs get the brochures on this coast. The wrecks carry its history — naval, commercial and human. Dive them in that spirit and they are among the best things you can do underwater here.