Kimon M
Also known as The lentil wreck
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.
- Built
- Built 1952 in Hamburg as the Brunsbüttel
- Lost
- 12 December 1978 — Struck the north-east corner of Sha’ab Abu Nuhas
- Ship
- German-built bulk carrier, 106m
- Depth
- 15–32m
- Diving it
- Day boat from Hurghada or El Gouna; the most exposed of the four
What happened
The Kimon M was a German-built bulk carrier working her way from Turkey to India with a hold full of lentils when she ran onto the north-east corner of Abu Nuhas in December 1978.
The crew were rescued by a passing ship. The bow stayed jammed on the reef and eventually broke away; the rest of the hull slid down the slope and came to rest on her starboard side, stern deepest at around 32m.
She gets fewer visitors than her three neighbours for a simple reason: she lies on the corner most exposed to the prevailing northerly, so the day the sea allows the Kimon M is not every day.
What is down there
- The stern section with the propeller, the deepest structure at Abu Nuhas
- The engine room, largely intact, for divers trained for it
- Substantial coral growth on the exposed superstructure — the current that makes access awkward also feeds it
- Little of the lentils; forty years of sea has dealt with those
Conditions
- The most current-exposed of the group, and the reason plans change
- Deeper than the others, so bottom time is the limiting factor rather than air
- Best in settled summer conditions
What to watch out for
- Depth plus current plus an overhead environment is three things at once. This is the Abu Nuhas wreck to leave alone until the other three are comfortable.
- Boats sometimes substitute it at short notice when the sea allows — make sure the dive you are briefed for is the dive you planned for.
Is it worth it?
For experienced wreck divers, yes — it is the quietest of the four and the most intact at depth. For anyone still counting their wreck dives on one hand, no.
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.
- Giannis DIntermediate
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.
- 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.
- 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