Egypt Red Sea - Abu Galawa-small (Wadi Lahami)

Setting

The wreck is the site's defining feature and it is not mentioned anywhere in the site record. 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

It is far more heavily colonized than either of the Saudi wrecks in this set — coral has settled across the frames, the ribs, and the plating, in real density rather than as a scatter. 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, Image 4).

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Coral cover

Coral cover is 21.5% ± 17.5 across 192 photographs, quoted verbatim from Mayfield, A.B. (2025) Environments 12:248 — Red Sea 2023-24 bleaching; CoralNet point annotation, Appendix A — a manual, diver-annotated CoralNet point count from Anderson's own published work, not a computer vision output and not recomputed here.

Stressors

The site record reports 61.3% of coral tissue bleached at about 21.8°C-weeks DHW. And nearly all of the coral on it 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

No prior survey data from this site. If you would like to share yours, please email us.

Dive record

The second dive of 23 September 2024 with Red Sea Diving Safari, and the one site on the Egypt leg with a shipwreck on it.

Other notes

See flags.