Floating Sea – the Death Sea

It’s the lowest point on earth, one of the the saltiest lakes and where no animals can survive. It has been one of the first health resorts and still today it’s a place where to regain health and beauty. The Dead Sea is all but dead.

I was so curious to try out reading a newspaper floating on the water as so many pictures show.

First some crude facts: The salinity is about 34% and more and the lake is located just 427 meters under sea level. It is the deepest with 306 meters and bordered by Palestine,

Israel and Jordan. But the basin is touched also by Syria, Lebanon and Egypt. No animals and plants can live in this salty water but there are microbial fungi and bacteria living.

The Dead Sea is about 50 km long and 15 km wide and its main tributary is the Jordan river. It offers great health resorts today and ‘lives’ from its tourism.

Recently they discovered that the lake gets fresh water also from it grounds. Rainfall can give also fresh water and can lower salinity – but rarely.

The health benefits of this mineral rich water, the reduced ultraviolet solar radiation and the higher atmospheric pressure have a variety of health effects. Respiratory problems, psoriasis, osteoarthritis and more can be healed here.

But I have nothing of these diseases or anyone else and wanted just to try out the benefits of the water.

Biblical the Salt Sea is well known and important as well. Here the Essener lived, a group of people believed that Jesus lived for a while with, south of the lake there were located Sodom and Gomorrah, destroyed for their lifestyle, the Qumran scrolls were discovered here in a nearby cave and John the Baptist was imprisoned in a fortress on the Jordanian side before killed. For many people also nominated in the Bible this was an escaping place due to its wilderness and difficulty to find someone.

We just had a few hours time to take a bath at the shore of the lake. We were in a 4-star-hotel where we could change our clothes. Here I saw the very first time Arabic swimsuits for women. They look like swimsuits for subs and seem to be comfortable as well. And it let me think how healthy it is never ever have any sun ray on the skin. Do they ever have skin cancer? Anyway… I took my Western swimsuit and down to the beach.

Unbelievable: the water let me float like a piece of paper. The difficulty was that my bump always wanted to go up! That makes swimming really a challenge! Guts floating on the surface I had a hollow back – and that hurts after a while. I started to swim backwards. It was advised to be careful not to get water into eyes and throat. Three of our fiver-group got it in. A fellow woman and I stayed in the warm water for an hour, then had a mus session all over waiting to dry and then bathing again. The skin after was so smooth like oiled. Incredible. I would liked to stay one or two days here honestly and to try out more times…

Have anyone here ever been to the Dead Sea? Due to health problems or just for fun? What is your experience? Let me know…