Floating in the Dead Sea: Jordan's loving cocoon

Floating in the Dead Sea is akin to swimming in a scuba diving buoyancy vest. Photo / Juliette Sivertsen

I'm alone in the sea and I can't touch the bottom.

I lean a little to the left and suddenly tip over on to my belly, flapping my arms and stretching my neck, desperate to keep my face out of the water. I quickly do a sideways wriggle on to my back to stabilise, and giggle to myself at the absurd sensation. There's no one around. I let out a guffaw.

The dawn light radiates a faint cotton-candy glow in the sky above the Dead Sea. In a few hours, there'll be barely room to move.

Hordes of tourists staying at fancy resorts on the banks, will be posing and snapping their cameras for the obligatory floating pictures. The cordoned-off area in the water will be squished with buoyant bodies, voices marvelling and laughing at the bizarre sensation of bobbing in water that is 10 times saltier than the ocean.

We'd driven past sea level the previous day. Now, in this landlocked body of water, I'm 420 metres below. The lowest point on earth.

The Dead Sea in Jordan is 420 metres below sea level. Photo / Juliette Sivertsen

Nothing of size can survive in this liquid environment - which fluctuates around 31 per cent salinity - apart from bacteria, some algae and micro-organisms.

The salt water is hailed for its therapeutic properties and tourists flock to the area and its stifling heat every day for a dip in nature's spa pool. We'd arrived too late to swim the night before, as patrols close the area each evening, but at 6.30am, the earliest time guests are allowed to enter each day, I'm the only one here under the dusky pink skies.

There are no ripples in the water. Just stillness. The bathlike temperature makes it hard to determine which parts of my skin are underwater and which are warmed by the air. The water feels like a motherly cocoon - as though Jordan is showing me her love and affection.

I switch between a semi-prone position on my back with my knees and feet poking through the surface of the water, and floating cross-legged, using my arms for balance.

But trying to move into any other position takes a lot of effort.

It's a bit like trying to swim forward while wearing a scuba diving buoyancy vest.

Any attempts at breaststroke risk a mild back injury because of how floaty all your limbs suddenly become. My spine is not bendy enough to achieve the required banana position of both head and legs at the surface to float on my stomach - at least, not without enduring the searing stinging pain of extreme salt water in my eyes.

After a few attempts to find the perfect Dead Sea paddle, I discover the optimal way to manoeuvre through the water is on my back, gently flapping my arms like a turtle.

The best time to visit the Dead Sea is at dawn before the crowds arrive. Photo / Juliette Sivertsen

My skin feels buttery in the water, as though I've slathered myself with baby oil before entering the sea. My forehead remains glowing with sweat from the walk down from the resort. I wonder how long I can safely stay in the water before the salt has depleted my own water stores.

If anything, there are therapeutic properties in simply floating, breathing, and taking in the brightening morning skies.

Over the next 30 minutes, small figures in the distance grow larger and the sun loungers begin to fill up with towels and possessions. The water becomes busier and the stillness I had experienced at dawn has faded; the softness in the sky becomes harsher as the sun rises above the hills.

Tourists' bodies' bob in the water, then become blackened with mud as they cover themselves head to toe in the allegedly therapeutic sludge, letting it dry on their skin before washing off to reveal a silky glow underneath.

Later I do the same, with members of my group who have also arrived to test the waters. We share laughs and photographs with one another, posing next to each other in our muddied suits, pretending to wrestle.

I'm thirsty now.

I need to wash off the mud and salt, and down copious amounts of water to replenish whatever has been sucked away in the sea.

Once rinsed off my skin feels soft, but in need of a thorough moisturise.

From the balcony from my room, I look beyond the tourists out to the stretch of sea, which remains quiet and unmoving.

Jordan's loving cocoon, embracing all those who enter.