Dennis Bakhuis

Dive site · wreck · The Strait of Gubal

🇪🇬 The Marcus (the tile wreck)

Abu Nuhas, Strait of Gubal, Egypt

The fourth Abu Nuhas wreck, loaded with Italian floor tiles — and the one whose name is genuinely unsettled, with the log's "Marcus" arguably the better answer than the usual "Chrisoula K".

Dives here
1
Deepest
21.7 m
Water
salt
First · last
2017

Revision 1 · changed 10 Oct 2026

History
  1. r1 10 Oct 2026 Imported from the personal log · Dennis Bakhuis

Site data © divelog-sites contributors (ODbL), descriptions and maps CC BY-SA 4.0 · 53edcaf

1 map

Stern on its starboard sideHolds, uprightReef edgeEngine room first, then the holds · 160 mPropeller, 4 m↓27 mEngine room and workshop↓22 mGalley with stove↓18 mBridge↓17 mHolds, stacked Italian tiles↓16 mBow smashed into the reef↓4 mRIB dropN20 m
  • Entry / exit
  • Wreck
  • Container
  • Machinery
  • Other object
  • Dive path
  • Wall / drop-off
  • Wreck footprint
  • Depth
Site map · 6 objects · 1 path · max 27 m

Wreck plan of the tile wreck (98 x 14.8 m) on the north face of Abu Nuhas, carried in OSM and most guides as the Chrisoula K, here as the Marcus: bow smashed into the reef at 4 m, holds upright with the stacked Italian tiles, stern with the engine room keeled over to starboard at 26-28 m, on a north-east to south-west line. Position and reef edge from OpenStreetMap; dimensions, layout and depths from the Red Sea Wreck Project and dive-guide descriptions; galley, workshop and the route (engine room first, then the holds) from first-hand observation. The Carnatic and the Kimon M are drawn as neighbours; positions are approximate.

Map © divelog-sites contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0 · 53edcaf

The identity problem

Most dive guides call this the Chrisoula K: built at Lübeck in 1954 as the Dora Oldendorf, 98 m, 3 720 tons, lost on Abu Nuhas on 31 August 1981 carrying 3 700 tonnes of Italian tiles to Jeddah.

There is a decent case that it is not. A second tile carrier, the Marcus, went onto the same reef in May 1978 with the same cargo, and the physical evidence on the wreck points her way: the state of the bow, the position of the anchor chain, and — the detail that is hard to argue with — the serial number on the engine, which belongs to the Marcus. The most likely reading is that the Chrisoula K struck, came off and sank elsewhere, and that the ship lying here under her name is the Marcus.

The log calls it the Marcus, which is what the boat called it. On the evidence, the boat may have been right. OpenStreetMap carries it as the Chrisoula K.

The dive

Whoever she is, she lies bow-first into the reef with her stern down the slope, 4 m to 27 m. The hold is full of stacked, palletised floor tiles, still in courses, which is an oddly domestic thing to find 25 m down. The engine room is open and large.

Dived 17 October 2017, the day after the Carnatic and the Giannis D.

Dived here with

Xavier

Nearby sites

1 dive at The Marcus (the tile wreck)

  1. 17 Oct 2017 with Xavier wreckboat date17 Oct 2017 depth21.7 m time66 min water—

Sources