Living it up in the Dead Sea The Dead Sea is not a typical beach lovers’ paradise but its therapeutic appeal transcends its uninviting atmosphere, write Hugh and Colleen Gantzer

THERE's nothing dead about it today. Our hotel was alive with vacationers in assorted variations of beachwear. They had come here to soak up the sun, breathe the oxygen-dense air at 1,200 feet below sea level, and float on a warm, therapeutic sea, neither sinking nor swimming.

Our first impression of the Dead Sea had been quite off-putting. Used, as we were to the blue-green waters of the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea, and the startlingly sapphire blue waters of the Mediterranean, the Dead Sea looked as cold and uninviting as the Arctic Ocean. And that, in spite of the fact that the temperature outside was 30`B0C and the water was at most 5 degrees less. But when we checked into our hotel, built like a Greek village with paved paths, stonewalls and shading trees, we felt much happier. We walked down to the private beach, past two fresh-water pools, strode across a gangway laid on the edge of the beach, and stepped into the sea.

It was comfortably warm. Other visitors were either standing in it up to their chests, or floating effortlessly on their backs, No one was splashing, no one was swimming. "In this water, our bodies are too buoyant to swim: they do not sink deep enough," said a fellow bather named Marcos. One of us did plunge under the surface: and regretted it. The water tasted like liquid alum! But the buoyancy was reassuring.

So was the fact that every stretch of beach had its two vigilant lifeguards, and yellow buoys, linked by yellow ropes, demarcated the safe zone for swimmers. Beyond that, the sea deepens and extends to the forbidden shores of Israel.

The best way to enjoy the Dead Sea is to lie on your back, legs and arms apart to provide the greatest floatation area, and propel yourself gently with your hands like a leaf drifting on the water.

Swimmers accustomed to fresh water will probably find that the texture of the water in the Dead Sea leaves a slight film on the skin. This is because of the heavy concentrations of salts and minerals dissolved in it. In fact there is a thriving trade in the sale of Dead Sea salts: very popular as Bath Salts.

But the true Dead Sea fans go further. Not content with letting the salts dry on their bodies, after floating on the sea, they dip their hands into large urns placed on the beach. These contain Dead Sea sand. They scoop out handfuls of this black stuff and spread it on their bodies till they look like variations of The Creature From the Black Lagoon!

Strangely, while women seemed to delight using this unusual ‘body lotion’, men appeared to shun it like the plague. Probably none of the men, who shared the beach with us, had, as yet, opted for the metro-sexual ‘smooth’ look.

To find out what makes the bottom-ooze of the Dead Sea so appealing, we visited the Dead Sea museum, about a half-hour drive away. There we learnt that this unique sea is what it is today because, while it receives the waters of the Jordan River, it has no outlet. Deep, underground, hot springs also pump up ‘unusual concentrations of minerals related to petroleum or volcanic rocks’. But in spite of these sources adding water to the lake, the only way it loses water is by evaporation. This results in greater and greater concentrations of salts and minerals every year.

Centuries ago, tar from the bottom of the sea used to float to the surface and be sold to the Pharaonic people of Egypt to embalm their dead, and to the Mesopotamians to waterproof their ships. Later, the Arabs used its sulphur-stone and tar to make hand-grenades and bombs.

While all this was interesting, the last word on the mysterious contents of the Dead Sea could come from a more revered source. According to the Bible, the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their inhabitants, were destroyed by fire and brimstone and they could, then, have slipped into the depths of the Dead Sea. According to the authorities of the museum: This Biblical account corresponds strongly with the seismically active geology of the eastern shores of the Dead Sea. But even such a legendary disaster can be recycled.

Further up those shores, we saw a number of chemical plants. There, they evaporated the water of the Sea in huge saltpans, and then they processed the salts into fertiliser. "Who do they sell it to?" we asked. " India" we were told, "Punjab and Haryana."

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