The Red Sea
To anyone standing on its shore and
gazing out across its heavenly waters, the Red Sea may seem to be a
mislabeling. Its blueness is eternal and anything less red cannot be
fantasized. The Red Sea, where the desert meets the ocean, is truly
one of the planet’s most exotic and fascinating natural seascape
environments. The Red Sea is located between Asia and Africa.
 At its
most northerly point forms the Sinai Peninsula and stretches over
1000 miles south to join the Indian Ocean, between Ethiopia and
Yemen. In the north and west are desert plains, while in the south a
mountainous region (2642 meters high), which is part of the mountain
range stretching from deep in Saudi Arabia, across the Sinai and
then into Nubia of the African continent. The Red Sea holds beneath
its crystal blue surface an oasis of living creatures, reefs, and
coral formation. Its use as a highway between East and West has
attracted man since the beginning of time.
The Red Sea was created by the
movement of plates in the Earth’s surface about 30 million years
ago. In that time, the Arab peninsula started to part from Africa
along a thin break line which was filled by the ocean’s water.
However, "Mother Nature" did not stop there. Twenty million years
ago another geological movement started. The Arab peninsula which
parted from Africa, started to move to the north. That movement
struck resistance in Turkey and swung to the east, and another break
line was formed. This one stretching all the way from the northern
part of Israel, through the Jordan valley to the Dead Sea, and
finally through the Gulf of Aqaba to Ras Mohamad at the southern
point of the Sinai.
 The young age of the Gulf of Aqaba is what makes
it so deep, 100 meters in
Dahab and 1800 meters
north of the Straits of Tiran. On the other hand, the old Gulf of
Suez is relatively shallow, with a 85 meters maximum depth. The Red
Sea is still widening at about one-half inch per year, the rift is
the youngest region of continental breakup on the planet, allowing
geologists to learn about processes that occurred in the Atlantic
and Pacific oceans hundreds of millions of years earlier.
Water temperatures in the Red Sea
remain unusually constant year round, averaging 22^ C in the summer.
Low pressure systems develop in the Sahara Desert and draw hot dry
east winds from Asia which cause the temperature to rise frequently
along with sand storms.
At the same time, lows develop over the Red
Sea, bringing moist cold air from the south and creating clouds,
haze, and more often rain. The northern land mass is the primary
influence over temperature in the gulf, but this decreases to the
south the closer you get to open sea. The open sea’s cooling effect
creates an interesting temperature pattern: maximum summer
temperatures are lower in the south while minimum temperatures are higher in
the north with the opposite occurring during the winter. In any
case, the coldest month of the year is January and the warmest months
are July and August.
The Red Sea is notorious among seafarers for
its high speed surface winds and aggressively short irregular
motion.
It may be calm on the inward shore, but journeys to exposed
sites like The Brothers islands, a remote off-shore site east of El Quseir, can be perilous and boats have been seen literally to fall
apart under the force of the journey.
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