---
title: Cedar Pride
type: Wreck dive site
location: Aqaba, AQ, Jordan
coordinates: 29.43099021911621, 34.97380828857422
max_depth_m: 27
published: 2026-09-04T19:42:04.656Z
updated: 2026-09-04T20:03:41.960Z
tags: Cedar Pride, Wreck, Red Sea, Dive site, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/diving/dive-sites/cedar-pride
---

# Cedar Pride

## Quick facts

- **Type:** Wreck
- **Location:** Aqaba, AQ, Jordan
- **Coordinates:** 29.43099021911621, 34.97380828857422
- **Max depth:** 27 m
- **Depth notes:** Highest point 7m; stern 16m, bow 20m; keel swim-through at 26m
- **Level:** Advanced

## Good to know

- Snorkeller-friendly reef top
- Suitable for beginners
- Best for advanced divers
- Night dives possible
- Great for macro photography

## Overview

The Cedar Pride did not land on sand. She lies intact on her port side with one reef under the bow and another under the stern, propped clear of the bottom in the middle, and the gap she leaves beneath her keel is a swim-through at 26 m. How she came to rest is what shapes every dive on her. She was a Spanish-built freighter of 74 m and 1,100 tons, launched in 1964 and sailing for a Lebanese line when a fire tore a hole in her at anchor in Aqaba port in July 1982. Prince Abdullah, later King Abdullah II and a diver himself, took an interest in the hulk, and after she was stripped of oil and anything else that could harm the reef she was scuttled here on November 16, 1985.

## Location

11.7 km south-southwest of Aqaba, 1.8 km down the coast from the Underwater Military Museum. Shore entry, about 130 m of swimming; also run from a boat.

## Conditions

Calm, with visibility over 20 m. The wreck tops out at 7 m and most of her sits inside recreational depth, so beginners dive her; the keel swim-through and the tank spaces are for people qualified to be in an overhead.

## Dive plan

The site is dived from shore, with a swim of about 130 m over sand before the wreck appears. She runs from 7 m at her highest point down to 26 m, the stern at around 16 m and the bow at around 20 m, which puts most of the ship inside recreational depth.

The superstructure is preserved and the masts lie out to the side, one of them useful as an ascent line; there is also a mooring line off the stern for the safety stop. A lifeboat still sits near the stern. Penetration is straightforward in the open sections and reaches the fuel tank spaces for divers qualified for it, and the swim-through under the keel is the deepest part of the dive.

## What to see

Forty years of growth have gone onto her, and the two reefs holding her up have spread onto the hull, so the ship reads as a piece of reef rather than as steel. Soft and hard corals and sea fans cover the plating and railings.

Schools of fusiliers and jacks turn around the hull, groupers and barracuda hold off the deeper end, and moray eels and scorpionfish sit in the crevices. Lionfish work the shadows under the superstructure. Seahorses, octopus, crabs, shrimps and nudibranchs are what the macro divers come for, and turtles pass through. At night the wreck goes over to lobsters, crabs and octopus.

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/diving/dive-sites/cedar-pride)*
*Updated: September 4, 2026*