Kormoran / Zingara Wreck - Tiran

The dive

One ship, two names. The 82.4 m general cargo vessel was launched at the Rostock shipyard in 1963 as the Kormoran, became the Adamastos in 1976 and the Zingara in 1980, and was running phosphate out of Aqaba for a Naples owner when a navigation error put her onto the north side of Laguna Reef, off Tiran Island, on 21 August 1984. She was 1,744 GRT, 12.7 m in the beam, and doing about twelve knots when she hit. The raised Kormoran lettering on the hull outlasted the repaints, which is why divers and dive centres still use the first name; Wikipedia records the wreck position as 28 00 16 N, 34 29 03 E.

She hit head-on at speed and jack-knifed in several places, so this is not an intact hull you swim along. The metal is spread across the shallow reef edge, most of it between roughly 3 and 12 m, with part of the structure still breaking the surface. The stern end is the most legible: railings still standing, the rudder and propeller, a winch, the six-cylinder diesel, and tiled sections of the accommodation. Table corals have grown over the plating so completely that on much of the wreck the ship reads as reef with straight edges in it.

It is a day-boat stop from Sharm El Sheikh, about 14 km to the southwest, and it is the first site on the Tiran rotation to be dropped from the plan. The north side of Laguna is exposed and every source that describes the dive puts a condition on it: calm surface only. Operators prefer the afternoon, when the tidal flow through the straits is at its slackest. One detailed published account drops behind the stern onto sand at around 18 m and works up onto the wreckage; the dive centres describe the wreck itself as a shallow site within 12 m and open to any certification level.

The fauna is ordinary Tiran shallow-reef rather than anything the wreck produced. Sea goldies and Red Sea anthias work the coral, coral hind and peacock cod sit in the plating, bluespotted ribbontail rays lie on the sand patches, and twoband anemonefish, blue and orange-lined triggerfish, several parrotfish and coronation trout are all recorded on this pin. Oonas Dive Club specifically names sohal surgeonfish as resident on the wreck, and both they and Camel Dive Club report nudibranchs and octopus on the metal.

• 82 m cargo ship broken over the reef edge between about 3 and 12 m
• Stern end is the most legible: rudder and propeller, winch, six-cylinder engine, tiled accommodation
• Heavy table-coral growth over the plating
• Sohal surgeonfish, coral hind, bluespotted ribbontail rays, nudibranchs and octopus reported on the metal

Conditions

Visibility in the Straits of Tiran is generally quoted at 20-25 m. Water runs from about 21 C in February and March to 28 C in August and September. On a good day here the surface is flat and the flow through the straits has gone slack; on a normal day the north side of Laguna is breaking and the boat goes elsewhere. Sea state, not visibility or temperature, decides whether this dive happens.

On current: The Straits of Tiran are known for strong and unpredictable tidal current, but this wreck is not a current dive: it is dived at or near slack, and operators put it in the afternoon when the flow through the straits is weakest. The published depth figures do not agree. Camel Dive Club and Oonas Dive Club describe the dive as within 0-12 m, Circle Divers give 10-12 m of water at the point of impact but list the site at 15 m, and the SS Thistlegorm project's article on the ship gives average depths of just 3-6 m over the wreckage with a drop behind the stern to about 18 m on the sand. The conservative reading, and the one recorded here, is that the wreck itself lies between roughly 3 and 12 m and that anything deeper is the approach off the reef. Sources also disagree on which end shows above the surface: the SS Thistlegorm article says the top of the stern is slightly out of the water and the bow drove into the reef, while Oonas describe the bow as visible above the waterline. Do not plan around either.

Best months: Apr, Oct, Nov