Captain of the Gulf Captain of the Gulf The Captain of the Gulf (; ) was a senior naval command of the Republic of Venice. The post was established around 1330, when a squadron of ships was set up to patrol the "Gulf of Venice" (the Adriatic Sea) and provide protection for commerce there. Neither the squadron nor the post of Captain were permanent. Every winter, the standing committees of the Great Council of Venice established the annual orders for the so-called "guard fleet", or "fleet of the Gulf". The Great Council then voted on the proposals, the size of the fleet, and the
Gulf of Suez Rift the area now occupied by the rift was a shallow sea depositing carbonates. This period was mainly quiet tectonically but the northern part of the gulf region was affected by periodic far-field effects of the Alpine orogeny. A series of WSW-ENE trending extensional basins were inverted, creating isolated uplifted and folded areas known as 'Syrian arc' structures. These structures were mainly active during the Late Santonian but there is evidence of further movements on the same structures at the end of the Cretaceous and during the Paleogene. Rifting began along the whole of the Red Sea -Gulf of Suez rift