SS Isola di Levanzo

The Isola di Levanzo ran aground on Elba Reef on 14 March 1923, while sailing from Genoa to Durban with general cargo and salt. On 28 March 1923, during the salvage operation, the towing hawser broke, the ship drifted onto the rocks and sank. Before that, she had been seized in the Black Sea in 1915 and badly damaged by a mine in 1916; after being repaired, she served on the Massawa supply service from 1919.

Today the ship lies upside down and broken in two on the edge of the drop-off, with the rudder and propeller at the stern, while the bow descends to the sandy bottom. The holds still contain drums, bottles and the coal bunker, and in the bow section there is a large cart with rubber wheels, trays and bottles, some apparently still full of red wine. Rarely visited, the wreck has sherry bottles scattered across the seabed around it.

The hull is covered in soft corals and black corals, with schooling fish, barracuda, large groupers and moray eels. The nooks of the upside-down vessel shelter groupers and schooling trevally. Around the structure, there are schools of reef fish. In the region, September to December is usually given as the time for dive trips to St John's and Elba Reef.