Aqaba – Day 3: The Underwater Battlefield
AQABA
Day 2: The Cedar Pride
April 08, 2025
PART I
Third and final day of diving. How I wished I could’ve extended our stay… But, as Hisham had promised, by the end of the day I would’ve covered most of Aqaba’s major highlights, while Rafael would finally earn his certification.
While Rafael completed the last of his open-water training dives, I would be visiting what was arguably the most unusual site in all of Aqaba – the Underwater Military Museum. Launched in 2019, the museum consists of 19 decommissioned military exhibits donated by the Jordanian Armed Forces. The vehicles were positioned at depths of around 15 to 28 metres to resemble a tactical battle formation when viewed from above.
Before being submerged, they were decommissioned and stripped of fuel, oils, ammunition and other hazardous materials. The project was intended to create new artificial habitat, draw visitors away from vulnerable natural reefs and offer divers something completely different to explore. Cool, cool.
The Underwater Military Museum
While I’m not particularly interested in military vehicles or wars in general, I have to admit that I was intrigued. Once we reached the museum, however, intrigued didn’t even begin to cover it. It was friggin’ awesome!
We got to lay our eyes on tanks, armoured personnel carriers, an ambulance, a military recovery vehicle, artillery pieces, anti-aircraft guns and helicopters, all sitting silently on the seabed. My favourites were the M42 Duster self-propelled anti-aircraft gun, the Bell AH-1F Cobra attack helicopter and one of the enormous field guns. I think this was the first dive I had ever done where I barely paid attention to the marine life and focused almost exclusively on the inanimate stuff.
I would say that the dive was perfect – except for one small hiccup. While taking photographs of the Cobra helicopter, I suddenly heard an enormous bang that nearly had me crapping inside my wetsuit. The sea shook.
For the life of me, I couldn’t work out what had just happened. Had I banged my tank against the helicopter? Surely I would’ve realised if I had. Or had one of the vehicle’s weapons somehow gone off? Seeing me confused and twisting around in circles trying to work out what the hell was happening, Hisham told me to relax and pointed towards the surface. Turns out, It was the military training we had been warned about a few days earlier. I felt like such an idiot!
A Diver is Born
Back at the surface, I must’ve looked like a child who had just returned from Disneyland. “That was so friggin’ awesome!” I kept repeating it over and over again.
Rafael might’ve felt as though he had missed out, had he not been busy celebrating his own achievement. He had completed his final open-water dives and was now officially a certified PADI Open Water Diver! I was so damn proud of him, even though he continued berating himself over every tiny, inconsequential mistake he thought he had made. Clearly, he didn’t remember my tank-dropping incident.
Up next, we would finally be diving together. While I’m not usually too thrilled by the prospect of diving with complete beginners, I was genuinely excited to share a dive with Rafael. I had persuaded him to complete the course, and now he was absolutely in love with it. How could I not share his enthusiasm? Plus, he was about to see some of Aqaba’s most memorable underwater attractions. I couldn’t have been happier for him if I tried.
Hercules in Pieces
In an effort to show Rafael as much as possible, Hisham planned to connect several nearby sites during one long dive, provided that Rafael’s air consumption and the rest of our dive profile allowed it. With him being about as athletic as they come, I had plenty of faith in him. He didn’t disappoint.
Our first stop was the Hercules C-130 wreck, a decommissioned four-engine military transport aircraft deliberately submerged in 2017 to create another artificial reef and diving attraction. When first sunk, the roughly 30-metre-long aircraft rested intact on its belly at an average maximum depth of around 16 metres. Unfortunately, a powerful storm in March 2020 tore the aluminium aircraft apart. Its nose was separated, its fuselage split and its wings collapsed onto the seabed, transforming what had originally been a pristine artificial attraction into a genuine wreck. Its surviving sections nevertheless continued to provide shelter for fish and surfaces for coral growth.
That didn’t make exploring it any less fun. I had a field day weaving around the surviving cockpit, fuselage, wings and cargo-hold sections. Hisham, meanwhile, remained close to Rafael as they circled the wreckage and inspected it from the outside. It might no longer have resembled the perfectly intact aircraft featured in Aqaba’s promotional photographs, but it was still an extraordinary sight!
Seven Sisters and The Tank
From there, we continued towards the Seven Sisters dive site, where two clusters of shallow coral pinnacles rise from the seabed. The second collection is commonly known as the Fairy Ring, with the entire reef stretching from around 3 to 16 metres in depth.
We didn’t have much time to admire the gorgeous seascape, given that Seven Sisters would normally have warranted a separate dive of its own. But at least we got to see it. Not to mention, it was a complete and total bonus. Hisham’s original aim had been for us to complete our safety stop at The Tank – another M42 Duster anti-aircraft vehicle resting on a sandy bottom at a depth of only around 6 metres. Deliberately submerged in 1999, it had gradually become covered in soft corals and sponges.
Like this, Rafael got to see the remains of both an aircraft and a tank during his first dive as a certified diver. Needless to say, it was the perfect way to bring our diving in Aqaba to an end. Rafael had had the time of his life and immediately began planning to complete his PADI Advanced Open Water Diver course the second we returned to Malta. My work here was done.
PART II
The Aqaba Fort
With the rest of the afternoon to ourselves, we figured we might as well make the most of our stay and finally explore a little more of the city above the water.
After a quick lunch in the city centre, we headed towards Al-Ghandour Beach, where we spent some time relaxing beside the sea. From there, we made our way to Aqaba Fort, a relatively small but historically significant fortress near the waterfront.
The standing structure largely dates from the reign of the Mamluk Sultan Qansuh al-Ghuri at the beginning of the 16th century, although it was later renovated and modified under Ottoman rule. Rather than serving solely as a defensive stronghold, it also functioned as a fortified caravanserai, offering shelter to pilgrims travelling towards Mecca, before increasingly taking on a military role.
The fortress also witnessed the events surrounding the capture of Aqaba during the Arab Revolt in July 1917. The victorious Arab forces were led primarily by Sharif Nasir and the Howeitat leader Auda Abu Tayi, with T. E. Lawrence participating as a British adviser and liaison officer. Aqaba’s capture from the Ottoman Empire provided the revolt with a strategically important Red Sea port. Today, the restored gateway, towers, courtyard and thick stone walls offer a glimpse into the city’s history, standing only a short distance away from Aqaba’s modern waterfront.
More Than Travelling Companions?
We spent the rest of the evening strolling through Aqaba’s streets before eventually returning to our hotel for some non-diving kind of fun – the first time since leaving Amman, given that we had possessed neither the time nor the energy until then.
Part of me wondered whether that had truly been the reason. Or whether it was simply a lack of chemistry. So far, Rafael had been an incredible travelling companion. He had survived the trek, put up with my endless nonsense and even allowed me to drag him into the cult of scuba diving. But I still wasn’t sure whether he would ever become anything more than that.
Luckily, we still had a few days left before the trip came to an end – and perhaps enough time to work out what this thing between us actually was.