OH GOD IT BURNS

I swam in the Dead Sea yesterday. It’s a bit like wallowing in warm KY Jelly if warm KY Jelly had the ability to sting the open end of your urethra with its massively high salt content. It’s actually quite painful and I now have an even greater enthusiasm for safe sexual practices. If a dose of the clap burns with anything like the intensity of high salinity water on the eye of your penis it’s something to be avoided at all costs. I must admit thought that I may invest in a few hundred litres of KY and an urn. The lukewarm lubricating slick which settles on your body while you’re in the water feels pretty damn good, particularly if you gently stroke your belly. Sadly, as soon as you step out of the water, in which you can actually see floating salt crystals, what was once a pleasingly sensuous meniscus instantly dries and you’re left covered in a salty crust with a genuine fear of dessication rising in your mind.

The sea’s water, which at 440m below sea level is the lowest point on the surface of the planet, contains 20 per cent salt and is four times saltier than the ocean. It has incredible buoyancy. If you stand upright you bob around like, well like a cork in the ocean. I’ve been suffering a bit of a head cold in the last couple of days but after the swim in the sea I’m miraculously mucus free courtesy of an ill advised bit of aquatic callisthenics which saw me face plant into the water’s surface exactly as I was inhaling through my nose. It was like breathing fire and I’m not ashamed to say I shed tears. At the time I had serious concerns that I might never inhale through my nostrils without pain again. Fortunately that fear has not been realised.

After our dip in the Dead Sea we headed to a fresh water canyon and plunged in. Sadly the water from the canyon is being diverted away from the sea, which is a shame as increased irrigation has dramatically reduced the amount of fresh water making its way into the basin, increasing the salt content of the water and disturbing the ecological balance between the only two living things that can stand the salinity; a specific type of algy and the bacteria which offsets it. Since the 60s the algal blooms, which once gave the body of water a sporadic but relatively frequent purple sheen, have been almost non-existent as the algie has struggled to survive the rising salt content. Still, on the plus side, at least tourists get to wash the salt off their bodies for a reasonable price.

We walked up the canyon for about thirty minutes, clambering up the small rapids to the final waterfall; a thundering cascade that pummelled and churned the water below. It was great fun and drifting back through the canyon made me feel like a little kid, just exploring and kicking around. Actually Petra was a bit like that too. It’s a good feeling.

That is all,

Dale Atkinson