The Dead Sea, the lowest place on land, and why you float

The Dead Sea lies in the bottom of the Great Rift, the long crack in the earth's crust that runs from Syria down through the Jordan Valley and the Red Sea to East Africa. Its shore is the lowest dry land on earth, more than four hundred metres below sea level, and getting lower every year. The drive down from Amman, only an hour or so away, descends through bare brown hills, with a sign marking the point where the road passes sea level and the air growing warmer and heavier with every bend, until the lake appears, flat and pale blue under a hazy sky, with the hills of the West Bank on the far side.

Why you float

The lake is fed mainly by the River Jordan, but it has no outlet. Water flows in and evaporates in the intense heat, leaving behind its dissolved salts and minerals. Over thousands of years, they have built up until the water is roughly ten times saltier than the ocean, one of the saltiest bodies of water in the world. Nothing larger than microbes can live in it, hence the name.

All that salt makes the water much denser than the human body, and so you float, effortlessly and absurdly, as if lying on an invisible lilo. Swimming in the normal sense is almost impossible. Your legs pop up whatever you do, and the usual posture is to lie back with your feet in the air, reading a newspaper for the obligatory photograph. The water feels oily and smooth on the skin.

How to do it safely

The Dead Sea is not like any other swim, and a few rules matter. Do not put your head under or splash. The water is extremely painful in the eyes and dangerous if swallowed, and fresh-water showers on the beaches are there for rinsing. Do not shave for a day beforehand, because the salt stings any small cut. Lie on your back rather than your front, which can be hard to turn over from. Stay in for only fifteen or twenty minutes at a time, and drink plenty of fresh water, because the heat and the salt are dehydrating.

The black mud on the shores is rich in minerals and has long been prized for the skin. Coating yourself in it, letting it dry in the sun, and then washing it off in the lake is a long-standing ritual. The hotels along the Jordanian shore have their own beaches, and there are public beaches too.

The area around the Dead Sea has sights of its own. Bethany Beyond the Jordan, a short drive to the north, is widely accepted as the site of the baptism of Jesus, and its excavated churches and pools are a World Heritage Site. To the south, the deep sandstone canyon of Wadi Mujib, a nature reserve, has a river trail where walkers wade and scramble up between towering walls, a popular adventure in the warmer months.

A shrinking sea

The Dead Sea is in trouble. Over the past half century, much of the water of the Jordan River has been diverted for farming and drinking water, and mineral extraction at the southern end takes more. As a result, the level of the lake has fallen dramatically, by more than a metre a year in recent decades, and its shoreline has retreated. Hotels that were built on the beach now stand some way from the water, and thousands of sinkholes have opened up along the shores where the receding salt water has dissolved the ground beneath. Various schemes to bring water from the Red Sea have been discussed for years.

Explore Worldwide's Family Jordan, Petra and Desert Adventure, eight nights, is designed for families. It includes the Dead Sea along with Amman, Jerash, Madaba, Kerak, Little Petra, Petra and Wadi Musa, Wadi Rum and Aqaba.

Explore Worldwide's Cycle Jordan, eight nights, includes the Dead Sea with Madaba, Mount Nebo, Shobak, Petra, Little Petra, El Beidha, Wadi Rum, Aqaba and Amman. Explore Worldwide's Jordan and Egypt: Petra to the Pyramids, fourteen nights, includes it on a route that continues to the Sinai and the Pyramids.

The lake is warm enough for floating most of the year, but summer at the bottom of the rift is fiercely hot, often well over forty degrees. Spring, autumn and winter are far more comfortable.