Cintra Bay or the Gulf of Cintra is a large, half-moon shaped
bay
A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a Gulf (geography), gulf, sea, sound (geography), sound, or bight (geogra ...
on the coast of
Río de Oro
Río de Oro (Spanish for "Gold River"; , ''wādī-að-ðahab'', often transliterated as ''Oued Edhahab'') was, with Saguia el-Hamra, one of the two territories that formed the Spanish province of Spanish Sahara after 1969; it had been taken as ...
province,
Western Sahara
Western Sahara ( '; ; ) is a disputed territory on the northwest coast and in the Maghreb region of North and West Africa. About 20% of the territory is controlled by the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), while the r ...
. It is located about south of
Dakhla. Its coastline is sparsely populated, and the environment is mostly wild and undeveloped. Originally called "St. Cyprian’s Bay", it was renamed after
Captain Gonçalo de Sintra, a 15th-century
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
explorer
Exploration refers to the historical practice of discovering remote lands. It is studied by geographers and historians.
Two major eras of exploration occurred in human history: one of convergence, and one of divergence. The first, covering most ...
who was thought to have met his death in the bay during an unauthorized, unsuccessful slave raid.
Etymology
The area was originally called "St. Cyprian’s Bay" but was renamed after
Gonçalo de Sintra
Gonçalo de Sintra or de Cintra (d.1444/45), was a 15th-century Portuguese explorer and servant of Prince Henry the Navigator.
According to chronicler Zurara, Gonçalo de Sintra was a young squire (''escudeiro'') or stirrup boy in the household ...
.
The
Treaty of Angra de Cintra
The Treaty of Angra de Cintra, signed by Spain and Morocco on 1 April 1958, ended the Spanish protectorate in Morocco and helped end the Ifni War.
The Spanish foreign minister, Fernando María Castiella y Maíz, and his Moroccan counterpart, Ahmed ...
of 1958, which led to the end of the
War of Ifni, was named after Cintra Bay.
Geography
The bay occupies 29
nautical mile
A nautical mile is a unit of length used in air, marine, and space navigation, and for the definition of territorial waters. Historically, it was defined as the meridian arc length corresponding to one minute ( of a degree) of latitude. Today ...
s between Punta del Pescador and Lagouira bay, and in general is open and very shallow, the average depth of the central part being 10 meters.
[National Agency for Aquaculture Development of Kingdom of Morocco]
Call for Expression of Interest Marine Aquaculture Development Project Ined Dakhla Oued Ed Dahab REgion
(pdf). Retrieved March 28, 2017 It is about in diameter, from the northern cape of ''Puntilla de las Raimas'', near Via Candelaria and Hassi Amatai, south to ''Puntila Negra'' or ''Punta Negra'', near Las Talaitas. The deepest point of the bay is at ''Hasi el Beied'', near the middle of Cintra Bay. Gulf waters consist of the inner ''Angra de Citra'' and outer areas of Bajo El Tortugo, Bajo Ahogado, and Bajo del Medio Golfo. The pelagic water out of Cintra Bay is called Bajo Arcila.
Cliff
In geography and geology, a cliff is an area of rock which has a general angle defined by the vertical, or nearly vertical. Cliffs are formed by the processes of weathering and erosion, with the effect of gravity. Cliffs are common on co ...
s,
dune
A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, f ...
s,
beach
A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc shel ...
es, and
lagoon
A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') a ...
s make up most of the coastal landscape. A large lagoon, ''Bajo Tortugo'' ("Bay of the Little Tortoise"), is on the northern side, and there is an area named ''Las Matorrales'' in the southern part. Several hills, some of which have flattened top or peaks can be seen along the region.
Cintra Bay has a peninsula at each end. Punta de las Raimas in the north is in length and mostly sandy and has rocks and a reef at the tip, while a sand dune can be found on the Punta Negra, which has reefs extending about around it.
The
shoal
In oceanography, geomorphology, and geoscience, a shoal is a natural submerged ridge, bank, or bar that consists of, or is covered by, sand or other unconsolidated material and rises from the bed of a body of water to near the surface. It ...
off to the southwest of Cintra Bay is called Banco de Sylvia. It lies between Dakhla and Cintra Bay, while
Amseisat Saccum and
Imlili
Imlili (also transliterated "Imililik") is a town in the disputed territory of Western Sahara. It is administered by Morocco as a rural commune in Oued Ed-Dahab Province in the region of Dakhla-Oued Ed-Dahab
Dakhla-Oued Ed-Dahab ( ar, ال ...
are further east within the inner desert.
Across the opposite side of ''Las Taraitas'' and Morro de Gorrei lies the Bay of Gorrei or the'Bahia de Gorrei, similar in shape but smaller than Cintra Bay. There are several other bays or inlets in shapes almost identical to Cintra or Gorrei Bays along the Rio de Oro region.
Bathymetry
The geographical and bathymetric factors of Cintra Bay make it suitable for fishing and aquaculture.
Its shallowness and closed-in aspect give it the highest water temperatures in the region. The south–north current flows only within the bay and is affected by tides, notably in areas near open water. This current also causes a vortex, or marine circulation in
levorotation
Optical rotation, also known as polarization rotation or circular birefringence, is the rotation of the orientation of the plane of polarization (waves), polarization about the optical axis of linear polarization, linearly polarized light as it ...
, at the northern area.
Natural history
The bay's coastline and surrounding areas are part of the western
Sahara Desert
, photo = Sahara real color.jpg
, photo_caption = The Sahara taken by Apollo 17 astronauts, 1972
, map =
, map_image =
, location =
, country =
, country1 =
, ...
, being covered mostly by dunes, making Cintra bay's
vegetation
Vegetation is an assemblage of plant species and the ground cover they provide. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular taxa, life forms, structure, spatial extent, or any other specific botanical or geographic character ...
very poor.
In contrast to the land, the waters in this area are part of the
Canary
Canary originally referred to the island of Gran Canaria on the west coast of Africa, and the group of surrounding islands (the Canary Islands). It may also refer to:
Animals Birds
* Canaries, birds in the genera ''Serinus'' and ''Crithagra'' i ...
Current System which is a highly productive
ocean current
An ocean current is a continuous, directed movement of sea water generated by a number of forces acting upon the water, including wind, the Coriolis effect, breaking waves, cabbeling, and temperature and salinity differences. Depth contours, s ...
, and the
Nouadhibou
Nouadhibou (; ar, نواذيبو, Nwādībū, Berber: Nwadibu, formerly in French: ) is the second largest city in Mauritania and serves as a major commercial centre. The city itself has about 118,000 inhabitants expanding to over 140,000 in the ...
Upwelling. One of major
upwelling zones is located just off the continental shelf. This makes the area one of the richest grounds for fishing in the world, and Cintra Bay itself serves as a hotspot for zooplankton and a spawning ground for
sardine
"Sardine" and "pilchard" are common names for various species of small, oily forage fish in the herring family Clupeidae. The term "sardine" was first used in English during the early 15th century, a folk etymology says it comes from the Ital ...
s.
Cephalaspidea
The order Cephalaspidea, also known as the headshield slugs and bubble snails, is a major taxon of sea slugs and bubble snails, marine gastropod mollusks within the larger clade Euopisthobranchia.Jörger K. M., Stöger I., Kano Y., Fukuda H., ...
can also be found within the bay.
Although Morocco once considered to create a national park including Cintra and Dakhla Bays,
it has been claimed that both the environment and biodiversity of Cintra Bay are threatened by an ongoing plan to strengthen Morocco's aquaculture with support from the EU,
and that research is needed in the area, notably on
right whale
Right whales are three species of large baleen whales of the genus ''Eubalaena'': the North Atlantic right whale (''E. glacialis''), the North Pacific right whale (''E. japonica'') and the Southern right whale (''E. australis''). They are clas ...
s, and protections for local fishing communities.
Mammals
Cetaceans
Based on 19th century whaling records, the coastline from 10 miles north of Puntilla de las Raimas, called "Goree" Bay by whalers, to 20 miles north of
Cabo Barbas and possibly a broader range
was the only known wintering or calving ground for the eastern North Atlantic population of
North Atlantic right whale
The North Atlantic right whale (''Eubalaena glacialis'') is a baleen whale, one of three right whale species belonging to the genus ''Eubalaena'', all of which were formerly classified as a single species. Because of their docile nature, their ...
s. These whales are now thought to be either extinct or in the
low-tens of animals left at best. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Cintra Bay Ground was one of three or four major grounds for right whale hunting in the North Atlantic, along with the south-eastern coastal United States,
Cape Farewell in
Greenland
Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is t ...
, and probably the
Iceland
Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...
ic region, and also being one of two winter-spring fields along with the US coasts.
Approximately 92 whales were killed during 44 visits by whalers from November to April each year, giving this region the highest catch density in the 19th century, though whaling was not carried out during all seasons. 82 of those animals were actually taken in the first two years of 1855–56, probably with some other species such as the
humpbacks. A scientific survey extending to
Dakhla peninsula/bay was conducted in 1998 and no evidence of any right whales still using the area was found. It was also found that these coastal waters were surprisingly poor in cetacean biodiversity. Only two species were found regularly, both with very small numbers, and both were found only in the Dakhla Bay region: a larger type of
bottlenose dolphin
Bottlenose dolphins are aquatic mammals in the genus ''Tursiops.'' They are common, cosmopolitan members of the family Delphinidae, the family of oceanic dolphins. Molecular studies show the genus definitively contains two species: the common ...
and
Atlantic humpback dolphin
The Atlantic humpback dolphin (''Sousa teuszii'') is a species of humpback dolphin that is found in coastal areas of West Africa.
It is regarded as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN.
Description
A ...
s.
Killer whale
The orca or killer whale (''Orcinus orca'') is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family, of which it is the largest member. It is the only extant species in the genus ''Orcinus'' and is recognizable by its black-and-white pa ...
s are known to occur along the coasts of Western Sahara today and occasionally in large numbers, according to whaling logs.
Recent studies gave hope that Cinta Bay could possibly be recolonized by right whales from the western population, as the two populations have been revealed to be much closer to each other than was previously thought.
Regardless of habitat densities, baleen whales,
fin whale
The fin whale (''Balaenoptera physalus''), also known as finback whale or common rorqual and formerly known as herring whale or razorback whale, is a cetacean belonging to the parvorder of baleen whales. It is the second-longest species of cet ...
s,
Brydes's whale,
sei whale
The sei whale ( , ; ''Balaenoptera borealis'') is a baleen whale, the third-largest rorqual after the blue whale and the fin whale. It inhabits most oceans and adjoining seas, and prefers deep offshore waters. It avoids polar and tropical ...
s, and
minke whale
The minke whale (), or lesser rorqual, is a species complex of baleen whale. The two species of minke whale are the common (or northern) minke whale and the Antarctic (or southern) minke whale. The minke whale was first described by the Danish n ...
s are known to still occur along the coasts of Western Sahara. Of these, fin whales and Bryde's whales had been confirmed in Dakhla and Cintra - Gorrei areas. Other species such as
Risso's dolphin
Risso's dolphin (''Grampus griseus'') is a dolphin, the only species of the genus ''Grampus''. Some of the closest related species to these dolphins include: pilot whales (''Globicephala'' spp.), pygmy killer whales (''Feresa attenuata''), melon ...
s,
common dolphin
The common dolphin (''Delphinus delphis'') is the most abundant cetacean in the world, with a global population of about six million. Despite this fact and its vernacular name, the common dolphin is not thought of as the archetypal dolphin, with ...
s,
rough-toothed dolphin
The rough-toothed dolphin (''Steno bredanensis'') is a species of dolphin that can be found in deep warm and tropical waters around the world.
The species was first described by Georges Cuvier in 1823. The genus name ''Steno'', of which this spe ...
s, and
harbor porpoise
The harbour porpoise (''Phocoena phocoena'') is one of eight extant species of porpoise. It is one of the smallest species of cetacean. As its name implies, it stays close to coastal areas or river estuaries, and as such, is the most familiar ...
s that have been confirmed in
Bay of Arguin
The Bay of Arguin (french: Baie d'Arguin; pt, Baía de Arguim) is a bay on the Atlantic shore of Mauritania and the former mouth of the Tamanrasset River, now a Paleo-river.
Geography
It is located south of Cap Blanc, north of Cap Timiris.
Th ...
area may possibly occur here as well.
Pinnipeds
Along with cetaceans, Cintra Bay may provide an important habitat for critically endangered
Mediterranean monk seal
The Mediterranean monk seal (''Monachus monachus'') is a monk seal belonging to the family Phocidae. , it is estimated that fewer than 700 individuals survive in three or four isolated subpopulations in the Mediterranean, (especially) in the Ae ...
s.
They were severely hunted to the brink of extinction in the 15th century by European sealers and local tribes, and are now almost extinct in the
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...
. Though not in Cintra Bay,
Cabo Blanco on Dakhla Peninsula still hosts the largest of the remaining colonies.
Terrestrial species
A large fraction of the biodiversity of terrestrial animals along the bay is unclear and has not been studied. Friendly
camel
A camel (from: la, camelus and grc-gre, κάμηλος (''kamēlos'') from Hebrew or Phoenician: גָמָל ''gāmāl''.) is an even-toed ungulate in the genus ''Camelus'' that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. C ...
s (
dromedary
The dromedary (''Camelus dromedarius'' or ;), also known as the dromedary camel, Arabian camel, or one-humped camel, is a large even-toed ungulate, of the genus ''Camelus'', with one hump on its back.
It is the tallest of the three species of ...
) live around the coast.
Sea reptiles
Sea turtle
Sea turtles (superfamily Chelonioidea), sometimes called marine turtles, are reptiles of the order Testudines and of the suborder Cryptodira. The seven existing species of sea turtles are the flatback, green, hawksbill, leatherback, loggerhead, ...
s are known to nest on the beach along the bay.
There have been studies focusing on Dakhla region.
Birds
Many species of migratory birds and
oceanic birds, such as
Western Palearctic waders, winter on West Sahara's coastline, in the Cintra Bay region and the
Banc d'Arguin National Park
The Banc d'Arguin National Park ( ar, حوض أركين) of Bay of Arguin lies in Western Africa on the west coast of Mauritania between Nouakchott and Nouadhibou and is the former mouth of the Tamanrasset River. The World Heritage Site is a m ...
, a
UNESCO World Heritage Site
A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...
,
Mauritania
Mauritania (; ar, موريتانيا, ', french: Mauritanie; Berber: ''Agawej'' or ''Cengit''; Pulaar: ''Moritani''; Wolof: ''Gànnaar''; Soninke:), officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania ( ar, الجمهورية الإسلامية ...
where nearly 110 species of seabirds are confirmed.
Based on bio-tracking studies,
osprey
The osprey (''Pandion haliaetus''), , also called sea hawk, river hawk, and fish hawk, is a diurnal, fish-eating bird of prey with a cosmopolitan range. It is a large raptor reaching more than in length and across the wings. It is brown o ...
is also a species to migrate here.
Settlements
![Western Sahara, 2007-12-25](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Western_Sahara%2C_2007-12-25.jpg)
The area is very remote and almost unpopulated, with only several small fishing settlements of shacks scattered along the coast. Of these, ''Puntillas de las Raimas'' which is at Bajo Tortugo, the northern end of the bay, is the largest. However, the population has reduced in recent times and the village was almost abandoned as of 2012.
[Paul Wildlifewriter. 2014.]
Ghost Town - Geography lessons from Ospreys #437
Retrieved December 26. 2014 ''Porto Rico'', another fishing settlement in the north of the bay, also lost significant population.
The closest urban city is at
Dakhla, approximately away.
Tourism
Although Cintra Bay has been considered a local attraction, sandstorms (especially in the spring) and mines collected from Cabo Barbas make the area unsuitable for tourists.
Western Sahara (Morocco): Tan-Tan – Fort Guerguerat
(pdf). Retrieved March 28, 2017
Notes
See also
*North Atlantic right whale
The North Atlantic right whale (''Eubalaena glacialis'') is a baleen whale, one of three right whale species belonging to the genus ''Eubalaena'', all of which were formerly classified as a single species. Because of their docile nature, their ...
References
{{Geography of Africa
Dakhla-Oued Ed-Dahab
Bays of Western Sahara