Cedar Pride

Jordan owns barely twenty-seven kilometers of coastline, and the Cedar Pride is the most deliberate thing on it. Built in Spain in 1964 and trading under several names before her Lebanese owners called her Cedar Pride, she was gutted by a fire while lying in Aqaba port in 1982 and sat rusting at the quay for three years, an insurance problem nobody wanted. The proposal to sink her as a dive site came from the young Prince Abdullah — now Jordan's king and an enthusiastic diver — and on 16 November 1985 she was towed a few hundred meters offshore and put down cleanly on her port side. The sinking was unusually well judged: she landed spanning two coral heads, leaving a swimmable gap beneath the hull where sunbeams cut under the keel. Reachable from the beach with a modest surface swim, she has become the centerpiece of Aqaba's marine park and one of the most photographed artificial reefs in the Middle East.

How she sank: Deliberately scuttled on 16 November 1985 after a 1982 harbor fire left her beyond economic repair.

Condition: Intact and settling gracefully; four decades of growth have blurred her outlines into reef.

Penetration: Limited. Open holds and the shelter-deck passages suit trained divers; the deeper machinery spaces are silty and should be left unless wreck-certified. Entering any overhead environment requires specific training — a wreck certification at minimum, technical wreck training for full penetration.

Recommended certification: Open Water; Advanced Open Water to explore the full hull

Current: Mild · Visibility: 12–25 m

Marine life: Soft corals in pinks and reds sheet the exposed hull, sergeant majors and lionfish hold the masts, and seagrass nearby shelters juvenile barracuda and the occasional seahorse.

Hazards: Boat traffic overhead near the marks; mild surge in shallow water; monofilament snagged on the crow's nest.

Lies within the Aqaba marine park; mooring and conduct rules apply.

An artificial reef is still protected — remove nothing.