Sudanese Red Sea
SUDANESE RED SEA
Of the most attractive natural
areas of Sudan are
its Red Sea
coastlines. They are the country's
biggest
tourist attractions and
have gained an excellent reputation
throughout the world.
Geological
Characteristics of
the Red Sea:
The Red Sea is a long and narrow
marine basin, with a total length
of about 1,900 km. It extends
northwards from the strait of
Baab El Mandab in Yemen to the
southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula
in Egypt. It is 306 km at its
widest point. The Red Sea has
three distinct zones of depth:
the shallow reef-studded
shelves
of less than 50 metres, the deep
shelves of
500-1,000 metres and
the central trench of more than
1,000 metres.
The maximum depth of the Red Sea
is 3,040 metres off Port
Sudan.
The Red Sea is unique in several
aspects, among them is its uniform
temperature distribution at the
surface and at different depths.
At the surface near Port Sudan,
the temperature range is
26.2-30.5
degrees Celsius, at a depth of
150 metres,
the range is still
23.9-25.9 degrees. Moreover, its
high
degree of transparency reaches
up to 46 metres. These characteristics
have made the Red Sea an ideal
place for snorkelers, divers and
photographers - as it is comfortably
warm, one could float nicely and
the visibility is better than
in most other
places.
The Sudanese coast is 650-km-long
as the crow flies. Numerous embayments
and gulfs
make it around 800-km-long.
It has two prominent features:
coastal lagoons or marsas in local
parlance and reefs or Shia'ab
in Arabic. The marsas may be protected
embayments of the sea, or may
have been cut into the coastal
plain, well beyond the general
coastline.
In
marsas, despite the heavy fresh
water influx during the short
rainy season, corals grow and
build coral knobs (tens of centimeters
to meters in size) and the patch
reefs (meters to tens of meters
in size). As for the reefs, they
are distinguished according to
their shapes and positioning.
There are the fringing reefs,
which are immediately at the coast.
They line the entire
Sudanese
coast, with the exception of the
marsas and
the Tokar Delta in
the south. The fringing reefs
are
usually 1000 meters wide and
could extend up to 3,000 meters.
Then there are the barrier reefs,
which are generally separated
from the coast and the fringing
reefs by a ship channel. The barriers
range from narrow discontinuous
reef walls, only several tens
to a few hundred meters wide,
to platforms of up to 14 km in
width. Finally, there are the
atolls, which are reef
platforms
located farthest offshore, several
hundreds of
meters to a few kilometers
in width and surrounded by waters.
Examples of these are the Senganeeb
Island and Shia'ab Rumi. All these
types of reef provide shelter
to a diversity of marine life.
They also offer protected areas
for snorkelers and shallow-water
divers.
Coral reefs
One of the most magnificent features
of the Red Sea are its beautiful
coral reefs. Corals, or more precisely,
their skeletons, are the main
components of which reefs are
built. Coral is an animal, individually
called a polyp, which is generally
one to a few
millimeters in diameter.
It looks like a bag with six arms
(or multiples of six) and for
its protection and support it
forms a skeleton of a kind of
limestone. These individual skeletons,
or corallites, as they are called,
are cub or tube shaped. Usually,
they live in coral colonies, which
may be centimeters to several
meters in size. Different kinds
of corals occur in different areas
of the reef; factors such as waves
and light determine the
nature
of the coral, whether of delicate
or solid
structure. Thus, the
distribution of corals reflects
their
respective adaptation to
the prevailing environmental conditions
in various parts of the reef.
Aside from corals, other elements
are also instrumental in the structure
of reefs; for example, worms and
calcareous red algae, a form of
marine plants.
Marine life
Surrounding the reefs and complementing
them in creating a
breath-taking
sight, is the wide spectrum of
marine life.
The Red Sea is famous
for its plants and animals, many
of which are related to those
of the Indian Ocean, but some
of which are exclusively found
in the Red Sea.
Among the common fish in the Red
Sea are the
tarpon, giant herring,
salmon herring or milkfish, soldier
fish, goggle eye and rock cod.
There are also more than 320 species
of sharks, among them such voracious
predators as the tiger shark and
hammer shark. It should be noted,
however, that unless irritated
or attracted by blood, sharks
are peaceful animals and,
generally
speaking, shark attacks along
the Red Sea
coast are very rare.
In addition, several species of
whales also find home in the Red
Sea, namely the blue whale, a
15-meter-long giant which feeds
on plankton, and the killer whale,
which poses no threat to humans
but scares off sharks. The whale
shark, 8 to l0 meters in length,
is a jolly, plankton-eating giant
that befriends fishermen.
Recreational
Activities
All these characteristics and
many others make the Red Sea an
attractive location for
vacations
and relaxation. This is especially
true for
those who love the sea
and enjoy its offerings. Scuba
divers, snorkelers, yachting and
various water sport enthusiasts
will find the Sudanese Red Sea
an ideal place for recreation
