Chrisoula K

Tiles. Thousands of them, stacked in the cargo holds like a warehouse floor that never arrived in Jeddah. The Chrisoula K sits almost upright on Abu Nuhas reef, her bow jammed into the coral at 3 metres and her stern angling down to sand at 28m. Most divers start deep at the propeller and rudder, both still in place after four decades, then swim forward along the hull past the engine room and bridge deck. The cargo holds are the centrepiece: open swim-throughs where sunlight catches the tile stacks and glassfish swirl around your torch beam. Lionfish hang motionless in every shadow. The bow section barely registers as a ship anymore. Coral has claimed it so thoroughly that reef and wreck blend into one structure, and this is where you do your safety stop.

Four wrecks sit on Abu Nuhas reef, and each has earned a nickname from its cargo. The Chrisoula K is the Tile Wreck. No other wreck in the Red Sea carries anything like it: hold after hold of Italian floor tiles, some with "Made in Italy" still readable on the surface. But the tiles are only half the story. This wreck spans the widest depth range of any Abu Nuhas site, from snorkelling depth at the bow to 28m at the stern. That range creates two different dives on the same hull. The shallow sections host dense coral growth and reef fish; the deeper stern harbours the original 9-cylinder MAN diesel engine, accessible to experienced wreck divers through narrow passages. The workshop still contains a drill press, a lathe, and a galley oven. Forty years underwater and the tools are recognisable. One honest footnote: some researchers have argued the Tile Wreck is really the Marcus, another tile-carrying freighter lost on this reef in 1978. Photo-comparison research supports the Chrisoula K identification and the name has stuck, but the debate is part of the wreck's story.

Launched in December 1953 and completed the following year, the vessel began as the cargo ship Dora Oldendorff, a general freighter of roughly 3,700 tons1. She was renamed Anna B in 1970 and, in 1979, passed to Greek owners in Piraeus who renamed her Chrisoula K. On her final voyage in late August 1981 she was carrying a full hold of Italian floor tiles from Livorno toward Jeddah when she ran aground at speed on the north-eastern corner of Sha'ab Abu Nuhas. Written off as a total loss, she settled against the base of the reef, where her twenty-one crew were taken off by the Egyptian navy without loss of life; the main hull sits upright while the stern has keeled onto its starboard side2. The wreck's identity remains disputed: some researchers hold that the tile-laden hull is in fact the Marcus, a similar freighter lost a few years earlier with a near-identical cargo3.

Two dives are the minimum to cover both the deep stern route and the mid-ship holds. The cargo hold swim-throughs are straightforward with clear exits. The engine room is a different matter. Restricted passages, structural obstructions, and significant silt-up potential make it suitable only for divers with wreck training. Bring multiple torches. Abu Nuhas sits in the open Strait of Gubal, so surface conditions can be rough even when the dive itself is calm below. Day boats from Hurghada take 2 to 2.5 hours each way. A liveaboard gives you time for multiple wrecks and avoids the long daily transit. Nitrox is worth having for the stern section at 26-28m.