Discovered by the author on 2/8/95 during the BSAC Southern Egyptian Expedition. My skipper had repeatedly raved on about a "drowned boat" and pointed to a point on the chart near Abu Gosoon.
As we cruised along the coastal reef a cigar shaped patch showed just below the surface. I didn’t wait for our boat to stop, literally fitting my scuba gear as I jumped into the water. A few minutes later the sight of a ships stern came into view, lying on its starboard side, keel seaward, masts lying on the shore reef, in only 14 mtrs. Identification was immediate and without doubt; her name read boldly on her stern - Hamada.
The Hamada was a small coastal freighter, which was carrying a cargo of plastic granules out bound from Yambo, Saudi Arabia.

The official report stated that she caught fire and sank in deep water. However, we found charred wood and a partially burned mattress in the wheelhouse. Her cargo doors were wide open and all personal effects and tools had gone. The drawers in the wheelhouse still contained charts, and her documents manifest. Her wheel radar panel, intercoms and telegraphs completed the bridge instrumentation. All wheelhouse glass was intact. There was little doubt that we were the first people ever to have dived her.
A fork lift truck lay on its side and the wreck had very little marine life save for a few surgeon fish, glass fish and a family of gobies, which had made one of the bow thrusts their home. Records were to show she had only been submerged 12 months.
The Wreck of the Hamada today
The wreck has now broken in two, her stern section slipping away from the reef. Part of the cargo still remains in her holds, ever struggling to reach the surface. Her wheel house is now badly damaged, but the break in the hull affords easy access into her engine room and her prop and rudder are still intact.
Marine life has colonised the wreck; every pie is home to a gobie or blennie, the glass fish shoal is so big it has split in two, lion fish patrol the wreck in three's and judging from their size are well fed!
So why the discrepancy in her position? It is obvious that she did not sink as reported and continued to drift, pushed along by the prevailing winds until she grounded and capsized in her present position; along way from her "official" one, as for the charred mattress and wood in the wheel house, I will leave that to your imagination!