THE OCEANS AND THE SEAS - 1 - ANSWERS

1. C. Ferdinand Magellan

In 1519, Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan, in the employ of Spain, began a journey across the Atlantic Ocean to seek a western route to the Spice Islands via South America.

(The Strait of Magellan)

After braving perilous seas and navigating through what is now known as the "Strait of Magellan" (a navigable sea route in southern Chile separating mainland South America to the north and Tierra del Fuego to the south), his small fleet entered an unfamiliar ocean in November, 1520. He called this body of water “Mar Pacifico" which means “peaceful sea” in Portuguese, due to the calmness of the water at the time.

(The Voyage of Magellan)

("Victoria", the sole ship of Magellan's fleet to complete the circumnavigation)

When Magellan and his crew entered the Pacific Ocean (“Mar Pacifico") after their long journey, they thought that the Spice Islands were close at hand. Little did they know that their destination remained thousands of miles away. The explorers had ventured into the largest ocean on Earth.

2. B. Gulf of Aden

The Gulf of Aden is a deep water gulf which separates the Arabian peninsula from the Horn of Africa. It is located to the south of Yemen and to the north of Somalia.

The Gulf of Aden is integral to the world economy as the delivery of a major portion of the Persian Gulf oil takes place through this water body. The waterway is also part of the important Suez Canal shipping route between the Mediterranean Sea and the Arabian Sea in the Indian Ocean, with about 21,000 ships crossing the gulf annually.

The rise of pirates in Gulf of Aden can be attributed to the political development in Somalia in the 1990s. After the collapse of the Somali government in 1991 with the onset of Somali Civil War and the disbandment of the Somali Navy, international fishing vessels began to conduct illegal fishing in Somali territorial waters. This depleted local fish stocks and Somali Fishing communities responded by forming armed groups to deter the invaders. These groups, using small boats, would sometimes hold vessels and crew for ransom. This grew into a lucrative trade, with large ransom payments. The pirates then began hijacking commercial vessels. In the early 2000s, the incidents of piracy increased and the Gulf of Eden evolved into a hub of pirate activity earning the dubious sobriquet "Pirates' Alley". However, since 2013 attacks in the waters had steadily declined due to active private security and international navy patrols.

3. B. Tasman Sea

The Tasman Sea is a marginal sea of the South Pacific Ocean, situated between Australia and New Zealand measuring about 2,000 km across and about 2,800 km from north to south. The sea was named after the Dutch explorer "Abel Janszoon Tasman", who was the first recorded European to encounter New Zealand and Tasmania.

The Tasman Sea is informally referred to in both Australian and New Zealand English as "the Ditch"; for example, crossing "the Ditch" means travelling to Australia from New Zealand, or vice versa. The diminutive term "the Ditch" used for the Tasman Sea is comparable to referring to the North Atlantic Ocean as "the Pond".

4. A. Cape Town

The Port of Cape Town is situated in Table Bay (named after the iconic flat-topped Table Mountain located in Cape Town), a natural bay on the Atlantic Ocean.

Because of its position along one of the world's busiest trade routes the Port of Cape Town is one of the busiest ports in South Africa, handling the largest amount of fresh fruit and second only to Durban as a container port. The port also has significant repair and maintenance facilities that are used by several large fishing fleets and parts of the West African oil industry. Because of the many tourist attractions offered by Cape Town and its surrounding region, many cruise ships also berth in the port.

(Major Ports of Africa)

The Port of Mombasa (Kilindini Harbour) is located in the Indian Ocean while the Port of San Francisco is situated in the Pacific Ocean. 

5. A. Melanesia

Melanesia is a sub-region of Oceania extending from New Guinea island in the southwestern Pacific Ocean to the Arafura Sea and eastward to Tonga.

The region includes the four independent countries of "Fiji", "Vanuatu", "Solomon Islands", "Papua New Guinea" as well as the French special collectivity of "New Caledonia", and parts of Indonesia – particularly Western New Guinea.

The name "Melanesia" was first used by Jules Dumont d'Urville in 1832 to denote an ethnic and geographical grouping of islands whose inhabitants he thought were distinct from those of Micronesia and Polynesia - the other sub-regions of the Oceania. The name "Melanesia" etymologically means "islands of black [people]", in reference to the dark skin of the inhabitants.

Oceania is a geographic region (not a Continent because its landmasses do not lie on the same area of continental crust), which consists of Australia and the three main Pacific island groups (Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia). Oceania is the collective name for the islands scattered throughout most of the Pacific Ocean. The term, in its widest sense, embraces the entire insular region between Asia and the Americas.

Broadly, Oceania is a distinct region because it has an ecology different from Asia, is historically a political region distinct from Asia, and has its position across the Pacific Ocean as a unifying geographic feature. The most popular usage delimits Oceania further by eliminating Indonesia, Taiwan and the Philippines, because the people and cultures of those islands are historically more closely related  to the Asian mainland.