Egypt Red Sea - Abu Galawa-small (Wadi Lahami)
Part of the regional summaries: Egypt and Red Sea
More info
Egypt (NOAA CRW virtual station)Abu Galawa-small centers on a steel shipwreck lying over on the reef, with scattered coral colonies (most on its open ribs) whose Acropora and encrusting corals were found almost entirely bleached brilliant white against the rust-brown steel hull, with the adjacent natural Porites-and-Acropora slope also extensively pale. Published cover was 21% with 61% of coral tissue bleached.
يتمحور أبو جلاوة الصغير حول حطام سفينة فولاذية مائلة على الشعاب، تنتشر عليه مستعمرات مرجانية متفرقة (معظمها على أضلاعه المكشوفة)، وقد وُجدت مرجانيات Acropora والمرجانيات المغلِّفة فيها شبه مبيضّة بالكامل بلون أبيض ساطع على هيكل الفولاذ البني الصدئ، وكان المنحدر الطبيعي المجاور من Porites وAcropora شاحبًا على نطاق واسع أيضًا. وبلغت التغطية المنشورة 21% مع ابيضاض 61% من نسيج المرجان.
ترجمة هذا الملخص بالذكاء الاصطناعي؛ النص الإنجليزي هو المعتمد.
Three independent survey stations shown with the program’s logo — click one to see how far it is from this site.
One other CRD dive site with its own page within 5 km shown in orange — click a marker to open its page.
3 of the 47 photographs on this page are shown beside the text that discusses them under "Site description" below.
Site description
Setting
The wreck is the site's defining feature. The frames show a substantial steel vessel lying over on the reef, its hull ribs and deck framing standing open like a cage, plating rusted to deep red-brown and orange, with the reef itself visible through the gaps.
General benthic features
Coral has settled on the wreck as scattered colonies, most of them on the open ribs and framing, with much of the rusted hull plating bare. Off the wreck, the natural reef is a slope of massive Porites and mixed Acropora over pavement, also extensively pale, running down onto sand (e.g., Image 1, Image 2, Image 3).
Coral cover
- Reference: Mayfield (2025)
- Data file: (Mayfield, 2025-appendix A)
- CoralNet submission package (accession #5546)
- 21% ± 18% SD across 192 photographs.
Stressors
The site record reports 61% of coral tissue bleached at about 26.0°C-weeks DHW on the survey date (23 September 2024; NOAA Coral Reef Watch, Egypt virtual station). Nearly all of the coral on the wreck is white. Half a dozen table and corymbose Acropora colonies growing directly on the wreck structure are bleached brilliant, uniform white, standing out against the rust-brown steel; the smaller encrusting and knobby colonies between them are pale blue-white.
Comparisons with other data
The Egyptian Red Sea Initiative surveyed a nearby station (Small Abou Galawa), 0.17 km from the pin; we could not confirm that it is the same reef. Within 5 km, three MERMAID project “Egyptian Red Sea Initiative - Egypt” stations recorded station-year means of 49–67% hard coral cover in 2026; the nearest, MERMAID project “Egyptian Red Sea Initiative - Egypt” at Small Abou Galawa, 0.17 km away, read 67% in 2026.
Dive record
The second dive of 23 September 2024 with Red Sea Diving Safari.
CV model comparison
More info
The reference is this dive site's own published CoralNet point count by the author (Mayfield 2025, Environments 12:248, Appendix A; most frames annotated by CoralNet's AI, trained and checked by the author). The computer-vision rows are this site's own values: Claude is a blind point count of all of the site's edited photographs, and CoralSCOP is the site's finished survey of its unedited photographs. They are on different frame sets from the published count, a row under 30 frames is indicative only, and no computer-vision method yet estimates coral cover accurately on new images.| Method | Hard coral cover (%) | Photos (n) ± SE |
|---|---|---|
| Published point count (CoralNet-assisted) | 21.5 | |
| CoralSCOP unedited | 23.1 | n = 203 |
| Claude (edited photos) | 25.8 | n = 188 · SE 1.5 |
The two computer-vision methods agree within 2.7 pp (23.1–25.8%) and read within 4.3 pp of the published point count (21.5%).
See a more detailed, stand-alone version of this table.
Independent surveys nearby
Within 5 km, 3 independent survey stations recorded hard coral cover in 2026. Since 2021, station-year means average 56% (range 49–67%; n = 3 station-years from 3 surveys). This site's own estimate (21%) sits 46 points below the recent value up to 2 km away (67%); the methods differ, so the comparison is context, not a like-for-like test.
Collected by other programs using different methods (MERMAID is a data platform: each MERMAID row names the organization that did the survey, and its method is in the row's hover text), so these are context for the figures above, not a like-for-like comparison. Where a station was surveyed more than once, the cell shows either the range of its values or, as a single value, the mean of surveys made in one year. Station names are not dive-site names.
| Agency | Site / location | Date | Hard coral cover (%) | Distance | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MERMAID project “Egyptian Red Sea Initiative - Egypt” | Small Abou Galawa | 2026 | 67% | 0.17 km | MERMAID |
| MERMAID project “Egyptian Red Sea Initiative - Egypt” | Shaab Hamam | 2026 | 49% | 3.18 km | MERMAID |
| MERMAID project “Egyptian Red Sea Initiative - Egypt” | Big Abou Galawa | 2026 | 53% | 4.27 km | MERMAID |
Data & links
All images from Coral Reef Diagnostics. Data are from Coral Reef Diagnostics and the organizations named in the data sources above.
© Coral Reef Diagnostics.