Underwater Safari: Coral Reef Tour | Israel today

In Eilat hides an underwater savannah - the northernmost coral reef in the world • Join us for a virtual and colorful tour between fish, corals and turtles • Fine in closure

Have you ever gone on a flowering trip in the depths of the sea?

Join us for a most delightful and surprising trip - a trip full of charm and color, where we witnessed the coral blossoms in the Coral Coast Reserve in Eilat.

The whole tour is done by swimming with a snorkel under the sea.

Photo: Ran Shauli, Omri Omasi, Chen Topikian, Nature and Parks Authority

All you need to do is know how to swim and get a simple diving mask to enter the wonderful water world of the northernmost coral reef in the world, and the only one in Israeli territory.

Not far from the beach you will discover spectacular sights in beauty, including coral colonies of various types and hundreds of colorful fish that are not afraid of watching them.

The clear waters of the Gulf of Eilat allow for a free viewing of disturbances and an exciting experience for all ages.

After getting used to breathing through snorkeling, just indulge in the peace and quiet of the coral reef.

Coral is reminiscent in its structure of a large and fossilized plant, but in fact it is an animal - the coral is made up of a colony of polyps which are animals with a single opening used for breathing, reproduction, excretion and of course eating.

At night, the coral takes out its hunting arms equipped with stinging cells, and through them it flanks a plankton, which are tiny creatures moving with the current in the sea.

The open hunter's arms look like small flowers that open and close at a pace.

The hard corals - the stone corals - can be divided into two main groups: block corals and shrub corals.

The latter group, as it is called, decorates the reef in a variety of forms like shrubs, not in vain coral care is called "coral gardening".

Among the corals of the shrub is a coral called "Shitit", which is reminiscent of an acacia tree with branched branches and resembles the savannah reef in appearance.

Also among the soft corals are quite a few representatives that look like flowers, among them a sagebrush, which adorns the reef with fresh and wonderful broccoli blooms and the orange cylinder that looks like a sunflower on a hot summer day.

Next to them you can see the sea rose, which is a huge polyp with many burning arms, between which the Eilat rose (called by the children "Nemo") swims for pleasure, without burning.

Just as vegetarian animals feed on flowers, so do fish feed on coral flowers.

The fish that specializes in eating polyps is the butterfly.

His mouth is pulled forward and allows him to "pump" the polyp out of the coral structure.

The butterfly also feeds on the sea rose, but only when the rose does not protect it.

The connection between the coral and the plant world is not accidental.

In the coral tissue live cooperative algae that give the coral most of their colorful color.

The algae live in symbiosis - sharing with the coral, while the coral provides a substrate for growth and protection and the algae provides the coral with food - sugar that is assimilated through solar energy.

The presence of algae inside the coral requires the existence of light conditions and therefore we will find the coral close to the water surface.

During the tour we will meet a variety of intriguing animals and we will even get to see particularly rare sightings that include documentation of: green turtles, a whale shark, a humpback dolphin, a giant mint and more.

Photos: Omri Omsi - Nature and Parks Authority