S.S. Thistlegorm

The first dive is the outside of the ship. She stands almost upright on the sand, about 130 metres from bow to stern, and a circuit takes in the stern platform with its two guns and the wreckage where the explosion tore her open. The two steam locomotives are on the sand beside her at about 30 metres. They were deck cargo, blown off to either side, and neither sits in a hold.

The second dive goes inside. A guided penetration works through the forward cargo holds, where Norton 16H and BSA motorcycles, Bedford trucks, Lee-Enfield rifles, ammunition and Wellington boots lie stowed, with Westland Lysander wings and an upturned Universal Carrier armoured vehicle among the rest of the load. Silt sets the limit inside: the water is clear until a group stirs the floor, and every group after it dives in the cloud.

A 1941 supply ship lies on the seabed with much of her wartime cargo still in place, and few wrecks have been recorded as closely. Photogrammetric surveys in 2017 and 2022 mapped the hull,1 and the 2017 campaign alone took 24,307 photographs over twelve dives.2 An eight-year volunteer count at the wreck logged 71 of 72 target reef taxa on the steel, in a place that receives up to 175,000 visiting divers a year.3

With that many visitors, timing matters: day boats tend to arrive at the wreck together, so the moorings and the holds are at their busiest then.

She was a British armed Merchant Navy cargo steamship, built in Sunderland by J. L. Thompson and Sons and completed in 1940, at 4,898 gross tons. Before her last voyage she had made three, carrying goods from America, grain from Argentina, and rum and sugar from the West Indies.

On the night of 5 to 6 October 1941, at anchor at Sha'ab Ali, she was bombed by German Heinkel He 111 aircraft. The bombs struck Hold No. 4 near the stern and she sank in under ten minutes. Nine men died, five Royal Navy gunners and four merchant sailors.2

Jacques Cousteau located the wreck with local fishermen in the 1950s. Sharm el Sheikh's resort growth in the 1990s then made it a mass recreational site. Egypt's accession to the UNESCO underwater heritage convention covers only wrecks of 100 years or more, which leaves a Second World War wreck outside it,2 and research at the site describes it as afforded no legal protection and prey to looting.3 Some items have been taken over the years.

The current is medium to strong and runs with the tide from the stern towards the bow, so brief the direction with the guide and go down and up your own boat's line. There is no separate mooring: boats tie on to the wreck directly, including fragile parts such as the guns, bridge and railings,2 so keep fins and gauges clear of those points and send up a surface marker buoy before you leave the wreck.

At 30 to 32 metres Nitrox buys real bottom time, and Circle Divers requires it. Entering the holds is overhead diving and wants wreck training.