Giannis D

A hundred metres of Greek cargo ship, broken into three pieces and listing hard to port. Drop to the stern at 24m where the sand meets the hull, and the scale hits you. The iconic D funnel rises overhead, draped in soft corals after four decades underwater. Swim forward into the engine room at 13m. Glassfish swarm in such density that your torch beam carves a visible tunnel through them. Giant morays watch from the passageways below. Catwalks and handrails are still in place. Beyond the engine room, the midship section is a crumpled mass of steel, and then the bow section lies on its side with the main mast projecting horizontally almost to the surface. Finish your dive ascending along this mast at 4-5m. Scorpionfish hide in the encrusted surface. Nudibranchs and gobies reward slow, close inspection.

Four wrecks sit on Abu Nuhas reef. Giannis D is the one that ends up on magazine covers. The 45-degree tilt creates compositions that upright wrecks cannot offer: skewed doorframes, angular decking, divers suspended at odd angles against the superstructure. The engine room glassfish spectacle is among the Red Sea's most reliable wide-angle subjects. But the tilt is more than photogenic. It changes the dive itself. Corridors slope where they should be flat. Your spatial references shift. Experienced divers call it disorienting in a good way. Outside, the hull has been colonized by hard and soft corals, table corals, and raspberry corals. Batfish and anthias patrol the exterior. Blue-spotted stingrays lie on the sand beneath the stern. The ship sailed under three names across three countries over 14 years before its final voyage from Croatia ended on this reef. That layered history adds weight to what is already a visually rich dive.

Built in Japan and completed in September 1969 at the Kurushima Dock Company in Imabari, the vessel entered service as the Shoyo Maru, a 2,992-ton general cargo ship measuring 99.5 metres in length. She was renamed Markos in 1975 and, in 1980, was acquired by the Dumarc Shipping and Trading Corporation of Piraeus, which gave her the name Giannis D. On 19 April 1983, carrying softwood timber from Rijeka toward the Red Sea ports of Jeddah and Hodeidah, she drifted west of her intended course and ran aground at full speed on the northwestern edge of the Sha'ab Abu Nuhas reef1. Her entire crew was taken off safely and no lives were lost. The abandoned hull, already listing heavily, was worked by the weather until it broke apart and settled onto the reef slope, where it lies on its port side today2.

Giannis D is the starting wreck at Abu Nuhas. The engine room penetration is wide, well-lit, and manageable for OW-certified divers with a guide. Deeper rooms in the accommodation section are more confined and demand wreck experience. A torch is essential for interior exploration. Carry a DSMB and know how to deploy it. Currents at the northern reef corner can push you off course during ascent, and your surface point may not match other divers. The wreck is popular. Day boats from Hurghada arrive mid-morning and crowd the site through the afternoon. Liveaboard itineraries that schedule early morning or late afternoon dives get the wreck without the traffic.