Aida

The Aida spent her working life on one of the loneliest rounds in the Red Sea: ferrying keepers, soldiers, water, and stores to the lighthouse islands between Suez and the deep south. Built in 1911, she was still at it in September 1957 when she came in to Big Brother to rotate the garrison. The island offers no anchorage worth the name, and in rising swell the approach went wrong; she was thrown against the reef and holed. Accounts of the evacuation vary in their details, but the ship was lost, and her stern half slid down the island's western wall while the shallow bow section broke up in the surf. What remains is a steep, atmospheric dive: railed decks tilted against the wall from about thirty meters, dissolving into blue below, every surface claimed by soft coral. She is usually dived in the same liveaboard visit as the Numidia, her older neighbor around the point.

How she sank: Driven onto Big Brother Island in heavy weather while landing personnel, September 1957.

Condition: The surviving stern is coherent but steadily corroding; the bow area is scattered plate in the shallows.

Penetration: Limited. The open stern decks allow brief sheltered passes; enclosed spaces sit deep enough that they belong to technical divers. Entering any overhead environment requires specific training — a wreck certification at minimum, technical wreck training for full penetration.

Recommended certification: Deep-trained Advanced Open Water; technical certification to explore below 40 m

Current: Strong · Visibility: 20–40 m

Marine life: Soft coral thickets, longnose hawkfish on the fans, anthias over the rails, and grey reef sharks cruising the wall off the wreck.

Hazards: Everything starts at 30 m and slopes away; add island currents and no easy exit, and this is a dive for disciplined buddy teams.

Within Egypt's marine-park islands; liveaboard permits and park fees apply.