Giannis D
The most photographed wreck at Abu Nuhas, and the most disorienting: the whole stern section lies canted hard over, so every corridor inside it runs at an angle your inner ear refuses to accept.
- Built
- Built 1969 in Japan as the Shoyo Maru
- Lost
- 19 April 1983 — Ran onto Sha’ab Abu Nuhas reef at speed
- Ship
- Greek-owned cargo ship, 100m
- Depth
- 4–28m
- Diving it
- Day boat from Hurghada or El Gouna, or any northern liveaboard route
What happened
She was built in Japan in 1969 and had already been renamed twice — Shoyo Maru, then Markos, then Giannis D — by the time she left Rijeka in April 1983 with a cargo of softwood, bound for Jeddah and then Hodeidah.
The reef at Abu Nuhas sits directly in the path of ships turning into the Gulf of Suez, and it has been catching them since the 1860s. The Giannis D struck it at speed. The crew got off; the ship broke into three, and the midships section largely collapsed.
What survives is the reason to dive her. The bow lies separately in the shallows. The stern, which carries the accommodation block and the engine room, lies over on its port side at an angle of roughly 45 degrees — intact, enterable, and thoroughly confusing.
What is down there
- The stern section with its mast still projecting, canted over and covered in soft coral
- The engine room, one of the most atmospheric penetrations in the Red Sea for those trained for it
- Clouds of glassfish through the interior, and lionfish hanging in the doorways
- The letter D still visible on the funnel
Conditions
- Shallow enough for long bottom times, which is what makes an Abu Nuhas day worthwhile
- The wrecks are on the exposed northern side; wind, not current, is usually what cancels the day
- March to November is realistic; deep winter northerlies make the site unworkable
What to watch out for
- The 45-degree list is genuinely disorienting inside. Divers lose their sense of up in the engine room, and the exit is not where your body thinks it is.
- Two or three wrecks in a day is a lot of ascents — watch your surface intervals rather than the itinerary the boat has sold.
Is it worth it?
Yes, and it is the one at Abu Nuhas to prioritise if the day only allows two. The tilted geometry is unlike anything else on this coast.
This is planning and history, not a dive briefing. 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.
Also in this bay — Hurghada
Dive sites
- Careless ReefIntermediate
Two pinnacles north-east of Giftun with a dramatic drop-off, long known for moray eels and for currents that decide the dive plan.
- Sha’ab Abu NuhasIntermediate
A shallow reef at the mouth of the Gulf of Suez that has claimed at least four ships — the Giannis D, Carnatic, Chrisoula K and Kimon M — all divable in a day.
- SS ThistlegormAdvanced
A British armed merchant ship sunk by air attack in 1941, still holding its wartime cargo of motorcycles, trucks and rifles. Widely considered one of the best wreck dives in the world.
- Giftun IslandsBeginner
Hurghada’s house reefs: a cluster of sheltered sites in a protected area, where most of the coast’s divers make their first Red Sea dive.
Wrecks
- SS ThistlegormIntermediate
A British war freighter still loaded with the equipment of an army that never received it — motorcycles, trucks, rifles and two railway locomotives — and the best-known wreck dive in the world outside Truk Lagoon.
- SS CarnaticIntermediate
A Victorian P&O steamer that has been on the reef since 1869, so thoroughly colonised that her ribs now read as architecture rather than as a ship. The oldest wreck dived on this coast.
- Chrisoula KBeginner
The one carrying Italian floor tiles, still stacked in the holds forty years later. The shallowest and most forgiving wreck at Abu Nuhas, and the one novice wreck divers should meet first.
- Kimon MAdvanced
Carrying lentils from Turkey to India when she hit the reef in 1978. The deepest and least visited of the Abu Nuhas wrecks, because she sits where the weather does.
- Rosalie MollerTechnical
The Thistlegorm’s forgotten sister in the same story: bombed by the same squadron two nights later, sunk in the same anchorage, and left almost perfectly intact in 50m — which is why almost nobody sees her.
Snorkelling
- Giftun IslandsBoat trip
Hurghada’s standard day trip, and for good reason: proper coral gardens in a protected area, 45 minutes out of the marina.
Kitesurfing
- HurghadaImprover
Wind, schools and cheap lessons in and around the city — less refined than El Gouna, considerably cheaper, and more variable.
The town guide for Hurghada