Red Sea
For incredible insights into a teeming world of marine life, some of it seen only here, and for the almost heart-stopping, inspirational beauty and mystery of mountains and desert-scapes forming its backdrop, the Red Sea cannot be beaten.
The Red Sea is a natural border between the continents of Asia and Africa. The world’s most northern tropical sea, it is inhabited by an immense variety of life: angelfish, butterfly fish, frogfish, parrotfish, Napoleon wrasse and turtles to name but few, with thousands of different fish and invertebrate species, including hundreds of varieties of soft and hard coral.
Another attraction of the Red Sea is its shipwrecks, both old and relatively recent, many of which can be explored and some of which, owing to the clarity of the water, can be spotted from the surface. For snorkellers and divers, the Red Sea is a veritable treasure chest of spectacular discovery.
Remaining Bedouins continue their nomadic life across the vast expanses of the Sinai Desert, while Aqaba, on the Jordanian coast, like Eilat in Israel, is a place of luxury tourist development and sophistication.
Winter climate is favourable for sailing and enjoys comfortable daily temperatures - with visibility good year round - falling to 10º centigrade at night. Protected by the landmass of Sinai, the waters of the north are almost always calm.
The Red Sea, which is paradoxically a blue and multi-coloured other world, is a place where scorching desert meets ocean and as such is one of the planet’s most exotic and deeply fascinating of destinations.