Red Sea Governorate

The Red Sea Governorate runs along the western shore of the Red Sea from the Gulf of Suez at Ain Sukhna down past Hurghada, El Gouna, Safaga, El Quseir, and Marsa Alam to the Sudanese border. The coast is desert-meets-reef along its full length: the Eastern Desert escarpment drops to a narrow coastal plain, the plain meets a fringing coral reef, and the reef edge drops to the deep Red Sea trough. Between the mainland and the central Red Sea, a chain of offshore islands — the Giftun group off Hurghada, Abu Minqar, Tawila, and Gobal at the northern end — creates the sheltered passages that built Hurghada's diving and watersport tourism. The tide along the western Red Sea coast is semidiurnal and small. Mean astronomical range at Hurghada is around 50 to 80 cm; spring tides push toward the upper end and neaps compress to 30 to 40 cm. The Gulf of Suez at the northern end shows slightly larger range due to the basin geometry, while the central Red Sea coast at Marsa Alam settles toward the lower end of the band. Wind and atmospheric pressure modulate water level meaningfully. The prevailing northerly wind down the Red Sea length stacks water against the southern shore in steady weather and relaxes water level on the Hurghada and Safaga reaches when it weakens. The Egyptian Hydrographic Department, headquartered in Alexandria with regional gauges along the Red Sea coast, is the authoritative source for tide and water-level data in Egyptian waters and is the reference to consult for any reef navigation, dive-charter scheduling, or marina operation. Predictions on this site come from Open-Meteo Marine — a gridded global ocean model with timing accuracy of about plus or minus 45 minutes and height accuracy of roughly 0.2 to 0.3 metres. On this small-range coast the model uncertainty is a non-trivial fraction of the total signal, so treat the predicted highs and lows as the rhythm rather than the precise level.