Straits of Tiran

The narrow channel between the Sinai coast and Tiran Island, where Red Sea water funnels into the Gulf of Aqaba and four reefs sit in a line across the current. South to north they run Gordon, Thomas, Woodhouse and Jackson, each named after a 19th-century British cartographer who mapped the strait. The Cypriot freighter Lara grounded on Jackson's northern face in 1982 and her rusted bow plates still break the surface, with the rest of the 137 m hull leaning down the wall to 70 m. Hard coral gardens cap the reef tops at 5 m and drop into walls and saddles patrolled by grey reef and whitetip sharks; Thomas Reef hides three arches that begin at 35 m, and a school of scalloped hammerheads is regularly sighted off the back of Jackson in late summer.