SeaLogEgypt · wreck · intermediate
An 1881 coal steamer lying upright against a beacon-marked reef in the Gubal shipping channel, shallow enough to spend the whole dive on.
Shag Rock is a small, roughly circular reef at the northern edge of the channel that ships use to enter the Strait of Gubal. It carries a small metal beacon on top, which is how boats find it. It sits about a mile south of the much larger Sha'ab Ali reef and roughly 6 km southwest of the Thistlegorm, and the two wrecks get confused constantly. The Thistlegorm is a 1941 war casualty lying off Sha'ab Ali. Shag Rock's wreck is the Kingston, a British iron screw steamer that ran onto this reef in February 1881 outbound from Cardiff to Aden with about 1,210 tons of Welsh coal. Refloating attempts failed and she settled a few days later. Dive guides called her the "Sara H" through the late 1980s until Peter Collings identified her correctly in 1996, and the old name still turns up on boat schedules.
The Kingston sits upright against the reef slope, bow shallow at roughly 4 m and stern as the deepest point. Published stern depths disagree: several guides say 15 m, the wreck-research databases say around 17 m, and one operator description puts it at 18 to 20 m, so plan for the deeper figure. The wooden decking rotted away long ago, so the hull is an open iron cage of ribs and frames lit from above rather than a dark penetration. The boilers and the engine room are visible from outside, the rudder and propeller are still in place at the stern, and both masts, crow's nests included, lie out on the sand alongside. Hard and soft corals have grown over most of the structure, which is why the wreck is a photographers' dive rather than a technical one.
The reef away from the wreck is worth its own dive. The sheltered southern point is the usual mooring and the normal start for a drift down either the east or the west side, and the southeastern corner carries stacked plate Acropora. OBIS records 44 taxa around this pin. Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins are by far the most frequently recorded, well ahead of everything else on the list; the rest is the standard northern Red Sea reef set, including sohal surgeonfish, blackspotted rubberlip sweetlips, several butterflyfish, bluefin trevally, blue-spotted ribbontail ray and the occasional spotted eagle ray.
The limiting factor here is not depth but water movement. The strait sets roughly north to south and can run hard, and Shag Rock sits in the middle of the shipping channel, so operators only put divers in when conditions allow and normally drop north of the wreck to drift south along it.
Boat only. It is reachable on a day boat from Sharm el-Sheikh and appears on most northern Red Sea liveaboard itineraries alongside the Thistlegorm, Dunraven and Rosalie Moller. Boats normally moor at the sheltered southern point of the reef; wreck dives are usually run as a drop north of the Kingston with a drift south along the hull.
Access to the site runs through a local operator.
No source we read singles out particular months for this site, and the northern Red Sea is dived year-round. What decides whether Shag Rock happens on a given day is wind and current rather than season, which is why northern liveaboard itineraries carry sheltered alternatives behind the big reefs.
An offshore reef in open water in the middle of the Gubal channel, with the current setting north to south and varying between negligible and hard. The southern point is the sheltered side and is where boats moor; the east and west flanks are the drift. On a good day the wreck is bright enough to shoot without lights because it is shallow and roofless. On a bad day the trip gets moved to the lagoons behind Sha'ab Ali or Sha'ab Mahmud, which stay workable when the open sea does not.
On current: The Strait of Gubal sets north to south and, in the words of the Red Sea Diving guide to the strait, it can run hard. Operators describing the Kingston are explicit that it should only be dived when conditions are good because strong current is possible, and the standard method is to drop divers north of the wreck and let them drift south along it. Sources also disagree on the deepest point: 15 m, 17 m and 18-20 m are all published for the stern, so the page uses the deeper figure. Shag Rock marks a working shipping channel, so drifting off the reef is a boat-traffic problem, not just a pickup problem.
The bow sits at roughly 4 to 5 m and the stern is the deepest part of the wreck. Published figures for the stern disagree: dive guides commonly say 15 m, wreck-research databases say around 17 m, and at least one operator description puts it at 18 to 20 m. Plan for the deeper number and you will have a dive that spends almost all of its time above 20 m.
By boat only. It is an isolated reef in the middle of the shipping channel into the Strait of Gubal, marked by a small metal beacon, and there is no shore access of any kind. Day boats run out from Sharm el-Sheikh, and it also appears on most northern Red Sea liveaboard itineraries alongside the Thistlegorm, the Dunraven and the Rosalie Moller.
No, and they get mixed up often. The Thistlegorm is a 1941 wartime wreck lying off Sha'ab Ali, roughly 6 km northeast of here. Shag Rock is a separate reef carrying the Kingston, a coal steamer that ran aground in February 1881. Some schedules still list the Kingston under its old wrong name, "Sara H".
The depth is friendly, but the current is not always. The strait sets north to south and can run hard, and operators say plainly that the Kingston should only be dived when conditions are good. On a calm day the shallow bow and reef top are within reach of a newly certified diver with a guide; on a running day this is a drift dive with a moving pickup and is better left to divers with current experience.
Only as a guest on a boat, and only on a flat day. There is no shore, no lagoon and no shelter, the reef sits in an active shipping channel, and the current can carry you off it. From the surface you would see the reef top and, at best, the shallowest bow structure of the Kingston at around 4 to 5 m. It is not a snorkelling destination in its own right.
Yes, and it is the defining condition of the site. The Strait of Gubal sets roughly north to south and can run hard, and visibility in the strait varies with the tidal flow. The standard method is to drop north of the wreck and drift south along the hull. Boats will move the dive to the sheltered lagoons behind Sha'ab Ali or Sha'ab Mahmud when the open sea is unworkable.
The hull is open rather than enclosed. The wooden decking rotted away long ago, leaving an iron skeleton of ribs and frames that daylight reaches from above, and the boilers and engine room can be seen without a real penetration. It is still an overhead environment with collapsed structure and loose iron, so it deserves wreck-diving discipline even though it does not look like a dark wreck.
The wreck itself is the main feature: the propeller and rudder at the stern, the boilers, and both masts with their crow's nests lying on the sand, all of it covered in hard and soft coral. The reef carries stacked plate Acropora on its southeastern corner. Of the 44 taxa recorded around this pin in OBIS, Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins come up far more often than anything else; the reef fish are the usual northern Red Sea cast, including sohal surgeonfish, blackspotted rubberlip sweetlips, butterflyfish, bluefin trevally and blue-spotted ribbontail ray.
| Species | How often | Records |
|---|---|---|
| Tursiops aduncus | occasional | 24 |
| Tridacna maxima | rare | 3 |
| Acanthurus sohal | rare | 3 |
| Chaetodon austriacus | rare | 3 |
| Heniochus intermedius | rare | 2 |
| Scarus ferrugineus | rare | 2 |
| Chaetodon fasciatus | rare | 2 |
| Pycnochromis dimidiatus | rare | 2 |
| Plectorhinchus gaterinus | rare | 2 |
| Amblyglyphidodon indicus | rare | 1 |
| Caranx melampygus | rare | 1 |
| Cephalopholis argus | rare | 1 |
| Chaetodon auriga | rare | 1 |
| Chaetodon larvatus | rare | 1 |
| Chaetodon melannotus | rare | 1 |
| Coris aygula | rare | 1 |
| Epibulus insidiator | rare | 1 |
| Mulloidichthys vanicolensis | rare | 1 |
| Neopomacentrus miryae | rare | 1 |
| Pomacanthus maculosus | rare | 1 |
| Pseudanthias squamipinnis | rare | 1 |
| Pseudochromis fridmani | rare | 1 |
| Pterocaesio chrysozona | rare | 1 |
| Scarus niger | rare | 1 |
| Scorpaenopsis diabolus | rare | 1 |
| Siganus stellatus | rare | 1 |
| Thalassoma rueppellii | rare | 1 |
| Zebrasoma desjardinii | rare | 1 |
| Abudefduf sexfasciatus | rare | 1 |
| Arothron diadematus | rare | 1 |
| Chaetodon paucifasciatus | rare | 1 |
| Parapriacanthus guentheri | rare | 1 |
| Pomacanthus imperator | rare | 1 |
| Sufflamen albicaudatum | rare | 1 |
| Ctenochaetus striatus | rare | 1 |
| Taeniura lymma | rare | 1 |
| Amphiprion bicinctus | rare | 1 |
| Chromis flavaxilla | rare | 1 |
| Millepora dichotoma | rare | 1 |
| Pomacentrus sulfureus | rare | 1 |
| Pygoplites diacanthus | rare | 1 |
| Tursiops truncatus | rare | 1 |
| Acanthurus gahhm | rare | 1 |
| Aetobatus ocellatus | rare | 1 |
A 126 m British armed freighter bombed in October 1941, sitting upright at 30 m with its war cargo still in the holds.
An 1870s iron 'China Boat' on her port side down the reef of Little Gubal, from 4 m to 28 m, with the wooden decks long rotted open.
A lighthouse-marked wall on the tip of Little Gubal with a small barge wreck in the lee: the northern Red Sea's default night dive.
The Thistlegorm's forgotten sister: a coal collier bombed two nights later, sitting upright and intact at 30-50 m off Gubal.
A horseshoe reef in the Strait of Gubal whose sheltered lagoon is a safari-boat overnight mooring, which is why most people who dive it do so at night.
The southern gap in Sha'ab Mahmoud's barrier reef, dived on the tide that empties the lagoon rather than on the one that fills it.
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