"…That exquisite corridor of tinted mountains and radiant water… here and nowhereelse, is the vestibule between the Levant and the Tropics."

E.M. Forster describing the Gulf of Suez, 1923.

Egypt's Red Sea coastruns from the Gulf and Suez to the Sudanese border. Its mineral-rich redmountain ranges inspired the mariners of antiquity to name the Sea MareRostrum, or the Red Sea.

Today, the crags andlimestone wadis of the Eastern Desert remain relatively unexplored, home toherds of ibex and gazelle. But the Red Sea itself, dotted with coral reefs,fringed by ancient ports, teeming with underwater life, has a rich maritimehistory which stretches back to Pharaonic times.