Sham El Sheikh, Ss Thistlegorm Shipwreck / Red Sea

The name Thistlegorm means "blue thistle" in Gaelic. On 2 June 1941 the ship sailed for Alexandria via South Africa and, in September, arrived in the Gulf of Suez, where she was assigned to "Safe Anchorage F" to await orders. Two Heinkel He 111 bombers left Crete to hunt down a supposed troopship and failed to find it, but one of them came across the ships anchored at Safe Anchorage F, near the Strait of Gubal. At 01:30 on 6 October 1941, two bombs struck hold 4, near the stern; the fire set off the ammunition in the hold, the explosion broke the ship apart and she sank. Nine people died, four sailors and five members of the Royal Navy gun crew, and the survivors were picked up by HMS Carlisle. Captain Ellis was awarded the OBE, and crewman Angus McLeay received the George Medal and the Lloyd's War Medal for saving another crew member.

The two locomotives lashed to the deck were thrown clear by the explosion and landed on the sand roughly thirty metres from the ship. The same squadron came back forty-eight hours later and sank the Rosalie Moller, a few miles away. The wreck was already marked on a 1948 update to a British Admiralty chart. In the early 1950s, Jacques Cousteau found the ship using information from local fishermen and removed a few items, such as a motorcycle, the captain's safe and the bell. The first known dive after that took place in 1974, when the wreck was rediscovered, and it was publicised as a dive site in 1992.

Today soft coral encrusts most of the exposed structure, and crocodilefish, stonefish and swarms of lionfish live on the metal. Nudibranchs, moray eels and batfish schools also appear.