Dead Sea boat ride

During the week of Hanukkah, on Dec. 28, 2016, I had the most amazing privilege of going on a boat trip on the Dead Sea. As far as I know, there are very few boats that ever venture onto the Dead Sea, except patrol boats that must be there in order to protect the border between Israel and Jordan. But I have never heard of any tourist boats going out on the Dead Sea until very recently. Once I heard of this opportunity, I immediately looked into it and signed myself up. The trip was very exciting and enlightening. The man who drove the boat spoke good English and is passionate about the science of the Dead Sea--its unique behaviour, salt formations, sinkholes, weather patterns, sedimentary layers, fresh water contributaries, and so forth. He taught me so many things that I think I better go on this trip again in the future so I can review all the facts he kept giving us.

Heading down to the beach of the Dead Sea

The waves are very salty and look like milk.

The layers of sediment on the beach are a mix of salt and mud.

Sometimes the salt looks like coral.

Salt can behave in many different ways.

Before we were even on the boat, I could see a salt formation in the distance that I was hoping the boat was going to go past.

While we were waiting for the boat to get ready, we explored a large sinkhole that had become a sort of inland lake.

The layers of salt and mud were buckling around the sinkhole/lake.

Can you see the salt-cicles hanging just above the water? They look just like icicles. 

It was interesting to observe the different colours of water in the Dead Sea. Up close the water was a deep blue, but in the distance it was the colour of turquoise.

The sedimentary layers that had caved in on the sides of the sinkholes looked sort of like layers of cake or wafer cookies.

These sinkholes were quite fascinating.

It was the first time I realised that sedimentary layers were not only interesting, but also beautiful.

I couldn't stop staring at the layers.

Two little sinkholes in front of one large sinkhole

There was just a tiny channel of water between the sinkhole and the rest of the Dead Sea.

Beautiful sedimentary layers

Salt growing on a stick of wood that was deposited from a fresh-water source during seasonal flooding. 

This extraordinary salt formation shows that the level of the Dead Sea keeps dropping all the time. It used to be as high as the top of this formation. 

As you can see, we had entered the boat and were in the area where the water was the colour of turquoise.

This peninsula that we were going around in the boat was totally drenched in salt-cicles. In the distance you can see the highway everyone always takes to visit the Dead Sea.

This is such an amazing place.

I am fascinated by all the shapes and textures that salt forms itself into.

It looks so much like snow, doesn't it?

This is a salt chimney with three small holes on top that send fresh water into the Dead Sea. The top of the chimney is at the water level, so the waves going back and forth were making it visible, then invisible, over and over again.

I am so curious about where this fresh water that comes through this chimney comes from originally.

Our boat pulled onto the salty shore so we could do a little exploring.

This place is a dreamland for photographers.

Salt-cicles galore

Did you ever imagine that salt could be this beautiful?

Salt pebbles

The amazing behaviour of salt

This is Jackie, our boat driver and source of endless amounts of information about the Dead Sea.

Here is the side of a sinkhole. Looking down into the water, you can see a mound of salt at the bottom of the sinkhole. That might be a salt chimney. But standing on the edge of this sinkhole was really standing on a salt platform or bridge. There was actually water underneath the platform for an unknown distance. It was always occurring to us that another cave-in could happen at any time.

A little salt chimney up on the shore. Keep in mind that the "shore" of the Dead Sea was really a platform of salt--no seashells or crabs or starfish--just salt salt salt. 

I love the lacelike patterns the salt makes right along the water's edge.

Salt lace

Salt lace

This is our boat parked along the shore. It can hold about 10 people.

Our boat would pull up along the shore, we'd get out, explore, take pictures, get back in the boat, go a little ways out from the shore, travel through the Dead Sea a bit, pull up to the shore, get out again, and so forth. I don't know how many times we got off and on the boat throughout the trip. Maybe around 10 or more times. 

Some of these are stones covered in salt and some of these are salt chimneys.

Some of the stones are a bright red/orange colour.

This is a giant extinct salt chimney. It is much larger than it appears in this picture. If an adult was standing at the water's edge near one of the corners of this formation, what is left of the chimney's sides would be taller than the person by several feet. 

This is a much smaller, extinct, broken and fallen-over salt chimney lying on the beach like a log.

This is another giant extinct salt chimney.

As you can see, this extinct salt chimney is covered in salt-cicles.

Jackie's boat was formerly used by the navy. I wonder how hard it is to maintain the motor in such salty conditions.

This is algae growing in a fresh-water stream that was feeding into the Dead Sea. 

Gazing across the Dead Sea towards the mountains of the country of Jordan--which in the times of early Israel were called the Mountains of Moab.

We passed another giant extinct salt chimney while whizzing by on the boat. These formations are not visible from the highway, so before this day, I had no idea they were all over the northern coast of the Dead Sea. Only a boat trip like this can reveal these treasures. 

We passed by this section of beach where Jackie told us is a camp of the Rainbow Family. (You can lookup the Rainbow Family on wikipedia if you are not familiar with them. I have met a few of them here in Israel and basically, they are hard-core hippies.)  

Some of the Rainbow Family people were bathing in the Dead Sea. Fortunately, they were clothed. Jackie said that this is not always the case. 

We came to a place where a fresh-water stream had carved a canyon as it headed into the Dead Sea.

The fresh-water is easily identifiable since it has grasses and vegetation growing in it, whereas the Dead Sea is devoid of any vegetation.

Once the fresh-water turns too salty, the vegetation stops growing.

The land was split into chunks like giant puzzle pieces with huge crevasses between them. 

This area was actually a network of canyons made by fresh-water streams feeding into the Dead Sea. First the water filled up old sinkholes, which made them into small lakes, and then the lakes carved their way to the Dead Sea. 

Look how much the water level has dropped since that salt was deposited. Jackie said the water level has been dropping on average about 1.5 meters per year. This is an alarming rate. Plans are in the works to figure out how to save the Dead Sea from completely drying out. One idea is to use desalination facilities to provide water from the Mediterranean Sea to the Sea of Galilee, which would restore the previous volume of the Jordan River, which would, in turn, add more volume to the Dead Sea. It will be some time though before this plan can be put into practice. 

This is another side canyon feeding into the Dead Sea.

Seeing the size of these two people gives you an idea of the size of these canyons.

I always find sedimentary layers to be very interesting.

Soft sedimentary layers squeezed into squiggles.

This canyon was just so so so pretty!

Now we are heading back after a 3.5 hour tour.

The sun was setting over the mountains to the west in Israel.

The Mountains of Moab to the east were pink in the sunset.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my pictures and descriptions of this trip. It was truly one of the most unique and exciting trips that I have ever done here in Israel as of yet. I am hoping to do this trip again and again in the future. If you plan to come to Israel, I would be happy to coordinate an opportunity for you to take this trip also. 

The very next day, after this trip, I had the privilege of going to a Shuli Rand concert. Shuli Rand is the writer, director, and main actor in the movie Ushpizin. But I will have to write about that experience another time. It was also very exciting, but I don't have time to cover that now. 

Also, I wanted to mention that I am no longer on Facebook, so if you thought I was blocking you, that is not the case. Facebook abolished my account, claiming that words on my wall were hateful or something. The only thing I could imagine they meant was when I wrote that when I think of Obama I think of riots. It's possible that I might have also mentioned some other things about Obama that I didn't like. Anyway, I am not politically-correct enough for Facebook, so they claimed I needed to show them my ID. Instead, I felt like it was time to get off of Facebook and focus on other things in life. So it has been over a month since I quit Facebook and I don't miss it at all. In fact, I often forget there ever was such a thing. So those of you who used to contact me using Facebook are welcome to email me or contact me using this blog. Sorry for the inconvenience, but it was time for me to move on.