Red Sea


The Red Sea is a gulf or basin of the Indian Ocean between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb sound and the Gulf of Aden. In the north is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba and the Gulf of Suez (leading to the Suez Canal). The sea is roughly 1,200 miles (1,900 km) long and at its widest is over 190 miles (300 km). The sea floor has a maximum depth of 8,200 feet (2,500 m) in the central median trench and an average depth of 1,640 feet (500 m), but it also has extensive shallow shelves, noted for their marine life and corals. The sea has a surface area of roughly 174,000 square miles (450,000 km²). The sea is the habitat of over 1,000 invertebrate species and 200 soft and hard corals. The sea occupies a part of the Great Rift Valley. The Red Sea is the world's most northern tropical sea.

Name
The sea was called the "Arabian Gulf" in most European sources up to the 20th century. This was derived from older Greek sources. Herodotus, Straban and Ptolemy all call the waterway "Arabicus Sinus", while reserving the term "Sea of Erythrias" (Red Sea) for the waters around the southern Arabian Peninsula, now known as Indian Ocean.
The name of the sea does not indicate the colour of the water. It may signify the seasonal blooms of the red-coloured cyanobacteria Trichodesmium erythraeum near the water surface. Some suggest that it refers to the mineral-rich red mountains nearby which are called "הרי אדום" (harei edom). Edom, meaning "ruddy complexion", is also an alternative Hebrew name for the red-faced biblical character Esau (brother of Jacob), and the nation descended from him, the Edomites, which in turn provides yet another possible origin for Red Sea.
There is also speculation that the name Red Sea came from a mistranslation of what should have been the Reed Sea in the Biblical story of the Exodus. The Sea of Reeds (in Hebrew Yâm-Sûph) is often mistranslated as the "Red Sea".
One hypothesis is the name comes from the Himarites, a local group whose own name means "red." Another theory favored by some modern scholars is the name "red" is referring to the direction "south," the same way the Black Sea's name may refer to "north." The basis of this theory is that some Asiatic languages used color words to refer to points on the compass.

Tourism
The sea is known for its spectacular dive sites such as Ras Mohammed, SS Thistlegorm (ship wreck), Elphinstone, The Brothers and Rocky Island in Egypt, and less known sites in Sudan such as Sanganeb, Abington, Angarosh and Shaab Rumi (see photo above).
The Red Sea was "discovered" as a diving destination by Hans Hass in the 1950s, and by Jacques-Yves Cousteau later.

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