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Overview
A long, long time ago in September 1981, the 'Loullia' ran aground on the northern slope of the Gordon Reef and hasn't sunk any further ever since. Although we can't have the pleasure of diving this wrecked cargo ship, we can find other pieces of wreckage such as drums or cables. Yet the easiest reef of the Tiran group with mooring sites also harbours hazards – please never underestimate the current!
Description
The Gordon Reef – the southernmost reef in the Straits of Tiran – measures approx. 900 metres in length and the top of the reef is just half a metre below the water's surface. This is also the reason why we cannot visit the 'Loullia' cargo ship which was stranded here on its way from Panama on 29 September 1981. But who needs sunken cargo vessels when there are whole treasures waiting for us to discover all over the Gordon Reef.
An unmanned lighthouse still stands in the southwest and in the north the barely recognisable ruins of a lighthouse offer the perfect object to search for, presenting one or two challenges. Sandy mooring sites with depths of two to ten metres exist in both the south, the east and the west.
In the southern part, it's all about the pleasure of diving, as the drop-off ledge ranges between 25 and 30 metres before plunging to 50 metres. In the remaining area of the reef, the dive suddenly proceeds steeply downward, all the way down to depths of 300 metres.
And now we finally come to the colourful part of the tour: in the 'amphitheatre' (a sandy basin), if we're lucky we might just run into scalloped hammerhead sharks that at first sight will leave us utterly speechless. Unlike their counterparts, the 'kind' whitetip reef sharks, also grant us an audience here time and time again. It's not for nothing that this sandy basin is also called the 'shark pool'. As a general rule, the blades of grass emerging from the sand are Red Sea garden eels offering further highlights other than just fire coral and gorgonian.
Hotspots
- Cable and drums: To the west of the amphitheatre, the current has done its work, washing up drums and cables which the ocean and its inhabitants have in the meantime made their own. The scattered pieces of metal to be found here are fragments of an old lighthouse.
- Barrels: To the east of the amphitheatre, huge sunken barrels can be found which small fish like to use to play hide-and-seek.
- Sandpit: It doesn't sound spectacular, but you'd be mistaken: it's the Gordon Reef's sandy plateau. Due to the shallow waters here, this area is teeming with garden eels and one or another snorkelers. It's precisely here, where you might feel safe, that you must pay the attention to the current.