Red Sea Diving
27° 49′ 03″ N, 33° 55′ 14″E The Thistlegorm, the Gaelic name means ‘blue thistle’, was a British transport ship belonging to the Albyn Line shipping company, was 126.5 meters long, a capacity of 4,898 tons (9,009 displacement tons), and had a three-cylinder steam engine developing 1,860 HP that gave the vessel a speed of …
The Strait of Gubal connects the Gulf of Suez to the Red Sea and is bordered to the west by the Egyptian coast and to the east by the Sinai peninsula. The Gulf of Suez is much shallower than the Gulf of Aqaba because of its different geological origin; its average depth is about 80 …
Shag Rock (Kingston) 27°46.438′ N – 33°52.241’E Shag Rock, situated about 5 a mile south of Sha’ab Ali and 6 miles away from the wreck of the Thistlegorm, is the name given to a shallow reef marked by a small metal lighthouse on its south-eastern side. A big sandy plateau by this lighthouse extends to …
Small Crack 27°43.884′ N — 34°05.894′ E Boats moored inside the lagoon at Small Crack The long, half-outcropping coral reef running from northwest t to southeast that constitutes the impressive Sha’ab Mahmud and separates a broad sandy lagoon from the open sea, is breached by two channels known as Small Crack (or Small Passage) and …
27°42.200′ N – 34°07.300′ E situated 6.9 miles west of Ras Mohammed with a small fi metal beacon indicating the southern tip of Sha’ab Mahmud. S In 1876 this was the site of the shipwreck of the British merchant ship Dunraven, built-in Newcastle in 1873 by Mitchell & Co with mixed propulsion (sail and steam), …
3.748′ N – 34°11.903′ E three miles west of Ras Mohammed, a series of outcropping coral pinnacles extends east-west for about 1.5 miles on the southern edge of Sha’ab el-Utah, flanking a large sandy lagoon with an average depth of about ten meters. Local fishermen call this site Saba Erg (the ‘Seven Pinnacles’) while divers …
GUBAL ISLAND THE BARG One disadvantage of Bluff Point is that being an ideal place to wait to cross the Straights is gets busy – very busy! Once the safari boats are moored they tend not to want to move until they leave for the crossing and this does limit you to diving the Gubal …
27° 41′ 12″ N, 33° 48′ 10″E. The Island of Gobal Seghir (little Gobal) lies at the very end of the busy shipping lane which takes its name from the Island’s big brother. These “Straits of Gobal” are found at that point where the north-west Red Sea begins to narrow as it becomes the Gulf …
27°34.630′ N – 33°55.410′ E The Greek cargo ship Giannis D. that had set sail from the Croatian harbour of Rijeka bound for Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and Hodeida in Yemen, carrying a cargo of timber crashed against the north-western corner of the reef of Abu Nuhas on 19th April 1983 as the captain of …