The Tank

An American-built M42 Duster - an anti-aircraft gun carriage retired by the Jordanian army - was lowered onto the sand here in 1999, and the little vehicle has since become Aqaba's unofficial mascot. It sits upright in barely six meters of clear water, twin barrels still elevated, every surface crusted in hard coral and swarmed by sergeant majors; an easy photograph and a genuinely odd one. The surrounding seagrass and rubble hold their own interest for patient eyes: octopus dens, flounders, seahorse luck for the fortunate. As a dive it lasts twenty minutes; as a snorkel or a novelty stop between reef dives it earns its fame, and it proved the concept Jordan later scaled up into the military museum down the coast.

اللحظة التي جئت من أجلها: A coral-covered tank at snorkel depth; effortless conditions; the original piece of Aqaba's sunken-machine collection.

التضاريس: A single armored vehicle upright on sand and seagrass in the shallows

نقطة الدخول: A short swim from the beach; usually combined with the neighboring reef or visited on the way to deeper sites.

المخاطر: Snorkel-boat traffic overhead; sharp edges on the vehicle under the coral.