El Arish
This 105 metre roll-on, roll-off passenger & car ferry was built in Norway in 1981. She underwent several name changes over the years but eventually was sold to Sayed Nasr Navigation Lines (Cairo, Egypt) and renamed EL-ARISH.
The ships final voyage was from Jeddah to Safaga in 2001. During this trip she was badly damaged by a fire in her engine room. She lay at anchor near Safaga for several years, becoming a local landmark - passed every day by local fishermen and charter boats. I remember seeing her in the old days when we had to travel to Ras Gharib by coach - often thinking to my self - "that would make a great wreck!" Then one morning she was gone. Did anybody notice, did anybody care? Most probably assumed she had sailed away.
Constructed: 1981 (Norway)
Wrecked: 2003
Length of ship: 105m (344ft)
Wreck location: near Safaga, Egypt.
Depth range of wreck: 12m to 33m
View wreck location using Google Earth.
(Requires Google Earth: Get it here).
The Discovery
I (Peter Collings) was sure that the El-Arish had sunk, but every time I mentioned the probable location of the wreck to a skipper, the response was always the same "No we cant go there, we’ll get arrested."
Finally, one day, a willing skipper took me to where I thought she was. It was not difficult to find 105 metres of ship lying on its side, just 12 metres below the surface.
The diving gossip columns said I had invented this wreck - an 'expert' novelist claimed it didn’t exist - and yet there she was - a very real intact car ferry lying on her side 12 metres below the surface, untouched, bell and compasses still in place, and located right under the noses of several local dive centres.
Diving the Wreck
The wreck is totally intact. Her gentle journey to the sea bed only crushed the port lifeboats as she rolled over onto her side and settled into the sandy bottom, 30 metres below the surface. Her huge bulbous nose, bow thrusters and stem are heavily covered in huge soft corals. She makes no attempt to hide her identity - the bow adorns her name, as do the lifeboats, life belts and her bell, albeit under a thin layer of silt.
The starboard anchor chain is draped over the bow thrusters, dropping down to the seabed and is also covered in a forest of oversized soft corals. Rounding the bow her flagstaff post and lamp precede a very short foc’s’le, fitted with huge winches for her two forward anchors.
There are endless swim-throughs, along companionways corridors and promenades Huge corals drape the roof supports.
The 4 story high superstructure reaches out with her comms mast and directional antenna disappearing into the gloom. What appears to be a PA horn sits central above the first row of windows, covered in algae, well at least most of us thought that was what it was, but not Mike and Sue Rowntree. Inscribed with 'EL TOR ALEXANDRIA 1981', the ships bell was still in place - and still there when we left.
Her navigation bridges both sported compasses, one hanging by its wire and the other still in its gimbal. Entry into the navigation bridge produced the ships certifications, still in glass frames. Her electronic navigation equipment was still intact - a mere coating of thin silt obscuring the details. At the risk of repeating myself again, it would seem that no had been here before.
Swimming aft along her lifeboat deck, the boats still with their Day-Glo orange paint repeat her name, not the name on her bell but her third and final entry in the Lloyds register 'EL ARISH'. Reaching the aft section, 105 metres from the bow, a complex arrangement of stairwells and rails linking 4 levels afford themselves to more growth and beyond is a magnificent sight - two huge propellers and rudders covered in soft corals over 2 metres long - the biggest I have ever seen in any part of the Red Sea. Photographic delights at both ends of the wreck!
At a convenient depth of 20 metres, the return journey to the start point of the dive can be made along her promenade deck. The lattice work of supports for the sunshade canopy are festooned in more soft corals and it is easy to examine her funnel and its shipping line emblem. Even plastic notices marking muster points still remain in place, as do fire hoses and life belts.
What a find! An intact 100m wreck in 30 metres of water. Diveable in all conditions and suitable for all levels of divers.
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