Sunk in the Dead Sea

Oceans are 3% salt, the Dead Sea is 30% plus a bunch of other minerals. With such a high salt content nothing lives in it except highly specialized bacteria. The tourist draw is the incredible buoyancy the salt content affords and the health benefits from the highly enriched water and mud. Being in Jordan we were so close to it that we couldn’t resist the detour. We were tentative to dip in because the water was murky and slimy to the touch. It was the exact temperature of the air which was in the mid-80s. Once in the heavy water kept us effortlessly afloat. Between the warm temp and thick water I wondered if that’s what it was like to being in a womb. Yes, a weird thought. It was just that soothing and relaxing…until we started testing the buoyancy with various attempts at acrobatics. It started out with trying to sit upright then spinning and balancing on our stomaches, all the while keeping our heads out of the water for fear of effects of the salt. And like the old idiom goes, it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Steve gets a little too comfortable with his balance and loses it, tumbling backwards into the water with his feet reaching for the sky and his head submerged in the soup. This whole time we were only in two feet of water so I lead him blind onto the beach and douse water over his eyes which are bloodshot. If you’re curious what it feels like to have the Dead Sea in your eyes you’ll have to ask Steve, but the water tastes like dirty salt, what I would imagine licking the bottom of a hiking sandal would be.

-Mary