Jordan's only coast — where the desert meets the Red Sea, T.E. Lawrence captured the Ottoman port in 1917, and coral reefs begin metres from shore in the clearest water in the Middle East
Aqaba is a city of 200,000 at the southern tip of Jordan on the Gulf of Aqaba — Jordan's sole sea access, where four countries meet at the northern tip of the Red Sea. The reef system begins close to shore in water visibility up to 30m; the city is the gateway to Wadi Rum's desert and Petra's rose-red city. T.E. Lawrence led an audacious surprise attack from the desert to capture Aqaba from Ottoman forces in July 1917 — a pivotal moment in the Arab Revolt, made famous in the film Lawrence of Arabia.
Ancient Aila (Aqaba) controlled the caravan route between the Mediterranean and Arabia for millennia — referenced as the port of Ezion-geber in the Hebrew Bible and used by the Nabataean kingdom before Rome absorbed the region as the province of Arabia Petraea in 106 CE. The Crusaders built a castle on the offshore Île de Graye (now Pharaoh's Island) in 1116 before Saladin retook it in 1170. The city passed through Mamluk and Ottoman rule until T.E. Lawrence's July 1917 assault from the Wadi Rum desert — arriving from the unexpected inland direction — collapsed the Ottoman garrison and handed…