A ferry that sank near Safaga in December 1991 with the loss of several hundred lives. It is divable, it is a grave, and whether to dive it at all is a question worth answering before you book.
The Salem Express is the most difficult site on this coast, and the difficulty is not technical. On the night of 17 December 1991 the ferry struck Hyndman Reef a short distance from Safaga and sank in minutes, most of those aboard trapped below decks. It remains one of the worst maritime disasters in Egyptian history.
It is dived, regularly, by operators out of Safaga and Hurghada, and it is an extraordinary dive: a large intact ship in shallow water with its cargo doors torn open. It is also a place where hundreds of people died, close enough to shore that some of their families watched the search.
Some divers will not go, and some operators will not take them. Both positions are entirely defensible and neither is squeamishness. If you do dive it, dive the outside, take nothing, photograph nothing that belonged to a person, and treat the briefing as a set of rules rather than suggestions. If that framing makes the dive less appealing, that is a reasonable thing to notice before you book rather than after you are in the water.
This is planning information, not a dive briefing or a substitute for one. Conditions change; your guide on the day is the authority. Diving emergency numbers and the coast’s recompression chambers are on our emergency contacts page.
Listed by the desk, in alphabetical order. Nobody pays to be here.
Safaga
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