Dead Sea Sunset
On the final day of my work trip to Amman, Jordan, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to visit The Dead Sea - AKA, the lowest point on Earth. When I arrived, the water was perfectly calm. There was no wind and the clouds were floating perfectly above. I watched a while at the people floating in the water as if they were sitting in some sort of floatation device, yet nothing was under them. Although I was content enough for being there without getting in the water myself, it was time to test out this mystery of buoyancy!
I walked into the rocky shoreline slowly and carefully. The water felt just like any other water at this point and as I progressed further away from the small beach, I decided to let myself go and simply laid back into the water. I could have held a book and read it because I was absolutely floating with zero effort. It truly is an amazing feeling!
As I floated around a while I could not help but think about how I was literally at the epicenter of much of the world's religious beliefs. I also thought about how all of the nearby countries (and their people) were not getting along because of these same beliefs. It is just 6 miles or so from where I took this photo to the other shore - yes, that is Israel across the way. I hope the future brings peace to everyone in this area.
FROM WIKIPEDIA: The Dead Sea (Hebrew: יָם הַמֶּלַח, Yam ha-Melah, "Sea of Salt", also Hebrew: יָם הַמָּוֶת, Yam ha-Mavet, "The Sea of Death", and Arabic: البحر الميت About this sound Al-Bahr al-Mayyit (help·info)),[5] also called the Salt Sea, is a salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east and Israel and the West Bank to the west. Its surface and shores are 429 metres (1,407 ft) below sea level,[4][6] Earth's lowest elevation on land. The Dead Sea is 304 m (997 ft) deep, the deepest hypersaline lake in the world. With 34.2% salinity (in 2011), it is 9.6 times as salty as the ocean, and one of the world's saltiest bodies of water.[7] This salinity makes for a harsh environment in which plants and animals cannot flourish, hence its name. The Dead Sea is 50 kilometres (31 mi) long and 15 kilometres (9 mi) wide at its widest point.[2] It lies in the Jordan Rift Valley and its main tributary is the Jordan River.
The Dead Sea has attracted visitors from around the Mediterranean basin for thousands of years. In the Bible, it is a place of refuge for King David. It was one of the world's first health resorts (for Herod the Great), and it has been the supplier of a wide variety of products, from asphalt for Egyptian mummification to potash for fertilizers. People also use the salt and the minerals from the Dead Sea to create cosmetics and herbal sachets.
The Dead Sea water has a density of 1.24 kg/litre, which makes swimming similar to floating.
