SS Carnatic
Also known as The wine wreck
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.
This wreck is a grave
Thirty-one people died here. The debris field is not a souvenir shop.
- Built
- Built 1862 by Samuda Brothers, London — iron hull, sail and steam
- Lost
- 13 September 1869 — Struck Sha’ab Abu Nuhas and broke in two after 36 hours aground
- Ship
- P&O steamer, 90m
- Depth
- 17–27m
- Diving it
- Day boat from Hurghada or El Gouna, usually paired with the Giannis D
What happened
The Carnatic left Suez for Bombay on 12 September 1869 with 230 people aboard, cotton, Royal Mail and 40,000 gold sovereigns in the strongroom. She hit Abu Nuhas at speed that night and stuck fast on the reef.
Because she seemed stable, the captain kept everyone on board and waited for a passing ship rather than launching the boats. Thirty-six hours later, in a rising sea, the hull snapped in two and went down in minutes. Thirty-one people died. The survivors rowed to Shadwan Island, three kilometres south, and were picked up the following day.
The gold was recovered by a salvage team within a couple of months, which disappointed several generations of divers. What was left was the hull — and 150 years of coral growth on an iron frame is the whole point of diving her. She is more reef than ship now, and the stern section, lying on its port side, is one of the prettiest pieces of structure in the northern Red Sea.
What is down there
- The open iron ribs of the hull, entirely covered in soft coral and alive with glassfish
- The stern with the propeller and rudder intact
- Wine and soda bottles still scattered in the debris field — the reason for her nickname
- Shoals of anthias and batfish through the frames, and the occasional turtle
Conditions
- Shallower and gentler than the Giannis D, with good light through the open structure
- Same exposure caveat as the rest of Abu Nuhas: the northern side takes the wind
- Excellent for photography because so much light gets into the hull
What to watch out for
- The structure is 150 years old and delicate. Fin contact damages coral that took a century to grow.
- Bottles are grave goods from a wreck where people died, and taking them is illegal as well as grubby.
Is it worth it?
Yes. It is the least dramatic of the Abu Nuhas wrecks as a ship and the most beautiful of them as a reef, which surprises people who came for the metal.
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.
- 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