Aqaba  - Your heart beats faster as the shadowy object appears before you in the deep blue Red Sea - first the outlines of the bow, then the superstructures and mast pointing diagonally toward the water's surface, and finally the rail, overgrown with corals and sponges.

The Lebanese freighter Cedar Pride is lying on its port side in the Gulf of Aqaba like a beached whale, a feast for the eyes of wreck divers. It is the biggest gem in Jordan's glittering crown of reefs, which is what King Abdullah II, then Jordan's crown prince, probably imagined it would be when he had the damaged ship deliberately sunk in 1985.

Jordan's royal family is the chief custodian of the country's underwater realm. Abdullah's father and predecessor on the throne, Hussein I, was an avid diver, as the Jordan Tourism Board notes. In 1997, Hussein made a large part of the sea off Jordan's 27-kilometre southern coastline a managed marine park.

At Abdullah's behest, the shell of a Russian tank was also sunk in the park as an attraction for divers, and scientists laid out artificial reefs there using concrete blocks.

Being under the royal family's wing has clearly benefited Jordan's coral reefs. The flourishing coral gardens teem with colourful fish.

Jordan's underwater realm seems largely sound, especially compared with the marine wasteland off the coast of the neighbouring Israeli city of Eilat, a resort known for its beaches and nightlife.

According to Englishman Monty Halls, a marine biologist, professional diver and author of a guide to the world's top dive locations, Jordanian reefs are comparatively healthy for the simple reason that so far they have been spared mass tourism, which has taken a heavy toll on other areas in the region.

Diving tourism in Jordan began to increase only in recent years, and gradually at that. Five-star hotels with attached diving centres have sprung up along the sandy beaches, and the number of direct flights to Aqaba has risen. But a two-legged creature propelled by rubber flippers is not yet the most prevalent species at Jordan's approximately 30 dive sites.

"We've learned from the mistakes of our neighbours, where diving began much earlier," said Osama Otoum, a diving instructor in Aqaba.

Dive groups in Jordan may not exceed six persons, a conservation measure that has had a positive effect. Otoum said about 200 kinds of hard corals and 160 kinds of soft corals proliferated in the Jordanian section of the Gulf of Aqaba, numbers that Claudio Richter, a professor at the Bremerhaven-based Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, judged to be realistic.

Divers hankering for an adrenaline rush from an encounter with a shark or manta are likely to be disappointed, though, because such large pelagic creatures seldom venture into the Gulf of Aqaba. Currents there are simply too weak to bring in sufficiently attractive food for them, Otoum explained.

On the other hand, Jordanian dive centres are well-suited to novices thanks to their pool-like conditions.

True world-class diving with all the spectacular ingredients can be found a bit further south, Richter noted.

"The reefs at Sinai in Egypt are Champions League, Jordan is the Bundesliga," he said, referring to Europe's most prestigious football competition and Germany's top football league. (dpa)