A bay with different colored water. The most picturesque seas on the planet

1. The Black Sea is an inland sea large swimming pool Atlantic Ocean. Today, it is the most popular holiday destination in Russia. Famous warm waters, hot climate and indescribably beautiful picturesque landscapes. ( 11 photos)

2. Black Sea takes square in 422,000 km², greatest length seas from north to south - 580 km, and greatest depth- 2210 meters, average - 1240 m.

3. The Black Sea surprises with its beauty and unusual nature, the Black Sea is located on the territory, the beaches of the Black Sea are known throughout the country as warm and cozy.

4. Surprisingly, in the Black Sea at a depth of over 150-200 meters, there is no life, with the exception of some bacteria, this is due to the saturation of the deep layers of water with hydrogen sulfide.

5. The Black Sea is an important transport area.

6. The Black Sea is one of the largest resort regions Eurasia, and the largest resort in Russia, holidays on the Black Sea are a warm sea, beautiful nature, beautiful beaches. Large tourist cities, Sochi, Adler, etc., are concentrated on the Black Sea coast.

7. In addition, the Black Sea retains an important strategic and military significance, there are a number of military bases located here.

8. Mild climate, beautiful amazing nature, the warm, clean sea makes the Black Sea a famous resort in Russia. Many famous people They have come and come to rest here. Writers enthusiastically write and compose poems about warm clear waters Black Sea, artists get a new object for creativity.

9. Where did this come from? interesting name No one can say for sure about the Black Sea, there are completely different hypotheses, it is only known that the first mention of the Black Sea was used in the 18th century.

Over the course of several years, we have amassed a huge collection of photos of the Black Sea - hundreds of colors and shades from the most different corners Crimea both summer and off-season. We selected 50, none of which are the best, but showing the diversity of shades of our sea and decided to use their example to show what causes the color of the sea to change.

December, Sevastopol

You can watch the changing color of the Black Sea endlessly! This is one of his amazing features- the ability to change colors depending on the time of year, day, weather, etc.

Sunset at Cape Chersonesos

Every time we go to the shore, we can observe how easily and naturally the waves change shades. It attracts, captivates, fascinates.

Swans wintering in Sevastopol

It is not for nothing that so many poets, writers, and artists spoke of the sea as an element that inspires creativity and the search for new forms and phrases.

At Streletskaya Bay

What determines the color of sea water?

Primarily from lighting, but the sun, winds, bottom, shores also contribute sea ​​creatures. For example, reports recently appeared that in June 2017 the Black Sea turned turquoise in color due to the bloom of microscopic algae, and now the shade resembles the Mediterranean. But bright blue shades can be found here in any year, for example, in a photo from 2012, the Black Sea turned turquoise in the Foros area:

Foros in July

But no less wonderful shades are in a completely different part of the peninsula in the Kalamitsky Bay:

Neighborhood of Beregovoe, Kalamitsky Bay

These red clayey shores, washed away by storms, gave the water a yellow tint.

The surface of the sea is incomparably beautiful during sunsets and sunrises, when the sun paints the sea in the most unexpected colors - pink:

Peschanoye, Bakhchisarai district

golden:

Dawn in Sevastopol

silver:

School of dives

lilac:

Kalamita Bay

And when the night wins, the waves turn inky black:

Ships in the roadstead

When there is no sun, the sea seems to become discolored and loses its colors, which is especially noticeable in winter months. This is the South Coast in February:

View from the lighthouse temple in Malorechenskoye

Kastropol Beach

Southern Bay of Sevastopol in January:

View from the Grafskaya pier to the military hospital

And this is the famous Swallow's Nest in winter:

Photo of Swallow's Nest from the observation deck

and the sky and the sea are gray, and even the pine trees around seem to have lost all their colors. Sometimes the sea looks like this in summer, but rather not gray, but silver:

Neighborhoods of Mezhvodnoye, Western Crimea

illuminated by the sun:

Sailing regatta

The most interesting thing is to watch the sea during a storm. Here is the pre-storm calm:

Quarantine Bay in Sevastopol

the storm cleared up:

Spring storm

the sky is no less expressive than the waves:

At the exit from Sevastopol Bay

and the water turns green instead of blue:

Sea element

or even this one, khaki:

Near the mouth of the Alma River

due to clayey shores that are washed away during storms. Or even this brown, completely opaque one:

Kalamita Bay

And this photo was taken in a different place:

Omega Bay, Sevastopol

The storm has subsided, but the turbidity raised from the bottom will settle for about another day.

But let's go back to good weather. A dolphin cuts the azure sea with its fin in the Alupka area:

Photo from Aivazovsky cliff

And this is another dolphin plowing the waters near Sevastopol at sunset:

Wild Omega

And this bright colors Fiolenta:

At Cape Fiolent

For some reason, there is a sea of ​​two colors here - blue and what fancy fashion renames every season as “morengo”, “moray eel”, “color of Lake Ritsa”, “ sea ​​wave"etc. Here's another shade of this color:

Rock Diva, Simeiz

Appolonovka, Sevastopol

And again Fiolent, but already chic deep blue, which is emphasized by multi-colored rocks:

View of St. George's Monastery and Jasper Beach

From above, the sea also pleases with a variety of shades. This is a view of the Foros Church from the road leading from the Baydar Pass to the South Coast:

Church of the Resurrection in Foros

View of Blue Bay from Mount Cat:

Waterpark "Blue Bay"

And this is a funny optical effect filmed in Simeiz:

Sea surface near Simeiz

A cargo ship is moving through the air over the lilac sea.

Why is the sea blue?

Not at all because it reflects the sky of the same color. In fact, we see blue because sunlight, consisting of waves of different colors, passes through the water column in different ways - short ones (cold shades) are scattered well, long ones (red shades) are poorly scattered.

Beach of Pobeda Park in Sevastopol

Therefore, we see sunlight coming back out of the water as blue. And since the height of the sun above the horizon, the thickness of the water, and the transparency of water and air are different, its shades also vary greatly.

Cossack Bay

The areas around Fiolent and Tarkhankut boast the brightest shades of turquoise and blue. This is the water in the Dzhangul area:

White rocks of the Dzhangul tract

And this is in the area of ​​the Belyaus Spit (Lake Donuzlav), where the water is as clear as crystal:

Sandy beach of Belyaus spit

The photo was taken just before the thunderstorm, it is clear that rain is already close. It’s not for nothing that artists love to paint such moments; nature is the best painter:

Round Bay

creating magnificent canvases:

Wild Omega Beach

and painting them with the most delicate watercolors:

Gagarinsky district of Sevastopol

Why is the Black Sea called the Black Sea?

Apparently Greek sailors, getting from Mediterranean Sea in Chernoe, this name marked the difference between them. If the first one’s shades are dominated by turquoise and aquamarine, then the Black Sea is often completely different -

In summer, at the entrance to Lake Donuzlav:

Donuzlav Strait before a thunderstorm

In winter in Sevastopol Bay:

Monument to the Scuttled Ships

In autumn in Balaclava:

Exit from Balaklava Bay

In spring in Feodosia:

Photo from Feodosia embankment

True, according to the ancient Greek geographer and historian Strabo, the Greek colonists called the place that unpleasantly struck them with storms and fogs Pont Aksinsky - an inhospitable sea.

Fog in Laspi Bay

Another version is that the name was invented by the Meotians and Sindians, the peoples who inhabited the northern shores Sea of ​​Azov who noticed that the two seas are of different colors - the Black Sea is much darker than the Azov Sea.

Summer sunset

By the way, it is not only black in Russian, but also in Turkish - Karadeniz, Bulgarian - Black Sea, German - Schwarze Meer, English - Black Sea, French - mer Noire, etc.

Sunset in Kalamita Bay

The third version of the name was put forward by hydrologists; they suggested that the ancients had noticed unique feature It is this reservoir that everything that ends up at depth turns black over time due to the hydrogen sulfide accumulated there.

In any case, the Black Sea can be almost any color, from white:

Most maps do not indicate the boundaries of the seas, so it seems that they simply smoothly pass into each other and into the oceans. But in fact, the boundaries of the seas extend not only along the seabed. Different densities, salinity and temperatures lead to the fact that at the junction of the seas it is as if two walls are bumping into each other. In several places on Earth this is even visually noticeable!

The boundaries of the seas (or sea and ocean) are most clearly visible where a vertical halocline appears. What is this phenomenon?

A halocline is a strong difference in salinity between two layers of water. Jacques Cousteau discovered the same phenomenon while exploring the Strait of Gibraltar. Layers of water of different salinity seem to be separated by a film. Each layer has its own flora and fauna!

For a halocline to arise, one body of water must be five times saltier than another. In this case, physical laws will prevent the waters from mixing. Anyone can see a halocline in a glass by pouring a layer of fresh water and a layer of salt water into it.

Now imagine a vertical halocline that occurs when two seas collide, one of which has a salt percentage five times higher than the other. The border will be vertical.

To see this phenomenon with your own eyes, go to the Danish city of Skagen. This is where you will see the place where the North Sea meets the Baltic Sea. At the border of the watershed you can often observe even small waves with caps: these are waves of two seas bumping into each other.

The watershed boundary is so prominent for several reasons:

The Baltic Sea is much inferior in salinity to the North Sea, their density is different;
- the meeting of the seas occurs in a small area and, moreover, in shallow water, which complicates the mixing of waters;
- The Baltic Sea is tidal, its waters practically do not extend beyond the basin.

But, despite the spectacular border of these two seas, their waters gradually mix. This is the only reason why the Baltic Sea has at least a little salinity. If it were not for the influx of salty streams from North Sea through this narrow meeting point, the Baltic would generally be a huge freshwater lake.

A similar effect can be seen in southwest Alaska. There Pacific Ocean meets the waters of the Gulf of Alaska. They also cannot mix right away, and not only because of the difference in salinity. The ocean and the bay have different water compositions. The effect is very colorful: the waters vary greatly in color. The Pacific Ocean is darker, and the glacier-fed Gulf of Alaska is light turquoise.

Visual boundaries of water basins can be seen on the border of Bely and Barents seas, in the Bab el-Mandeb and Gibraltar Straits. In other places, water boundaries also exist, but they are smoother and not noticeable to the eye, since the mixing of waters occurs more intensely. And yet, while vacationing in Greece, Cyprus and some other island resorts, it is easy to notice that the sea on one side of the island behaves completely differently than the sea washing the opposite shore.