The Straits of Tiran hold four reef systems — Jackson, Woodhouse, Thomas, and Gordon — each rising from depths exceeding 800 metres to form narrow plateaus where the Gulf of Aqaba meets the Red Sea. Jacques Cousteau charted these walls in 1951, documenting vertical coral gardens and pelagic highways that funnelled hammerhead sharks, barracuda, and manta rays through channels no wider than two kilometres. The reefs occupy a geopolitical fault line: Egyptian territorial waters bordered by Saudi Arabia to the east, with Israeli and Jordanian coastlines visible on clear mornings. Military restrictions closed the straits intermittently between 1967 and 1982, inadvertently preserving coral cover that now registers among the highest densities in the northern Red Sea. Tiran Island itself remains uninhabited, a 61-square-kilometre outcrop of Precambrian granite under Egyptian administration since the 1982 treaty. The island's southern tip anchors Gordon Reef, where the wreck of the Loullia cargo ship rests at 24 metres, its hull colonised by soft corals and glassfish. Jackson Reef, the northernmost site, descends in terraces to a drop-off at 30 metres, hosting grey reef sharks and napoleonfish that patrol the current-scoured edge. Woodhouse Reef's eastern wall presents a sheer face from 15 to 80 metres, studded with gorgonian fans and black coral trees that require decades to reach photographable size. Thomas Reef, the smallest of the quartet, concentrates its biodiversity in a shallow lagoon where juvenile turtles forage among seagrass beds. Conservation protocols introduced in 2004 mandate mooring buoys at all four sites, prohibiting anchor drops that previously scarred coral plateaus. The 7-euro daily fee funds ranger patrols and marine monitoring programmes coordinated with Ras Mohamed National Park, 20 kilometres south. Visibility averages 25 metres year-round, peaking at 40 metres during winter months when plankton blooms subside and water temperatures drop to 21°C. Summer thermoclines stratify the water column, creating temperature shifts of six degrees between surface and depth. Dive operators run daily circuits from Sharm El Sheikh's Naama Bay marina, a 90-minute transit that departs between 07:00 and 10:00 to synchronise surface intervals with slack tide windows. The straits generate predictable currents: incoming flood tides from 06:00 to 12:00, outgoing ebb tides from 13:00 to 19:00, with a brief still-water pause at the turn.