The Dead Sea is a Salt Lake that is bordered by Jordan in the East and the West Bank and Israel in the West. Its main tributary is in fact the Jordan River and the Dead Sea is also in the Jordan Rift Valley. It is spread over an area of 605 sq. km. and has a maximum depth of 978 ft. Often, when people hear about the Dead Sea they will learn that because of the incredibly high salt content you can sit or semi-stand on the water without sinking. But what happens with boats? Can they even sink when they are on the Dead Sea? Let’s find out!

The Dead Sea

The Dead Sea also called the Salt Sea is a salt lake surrounded by land and located between Israel and Jordan in southwestern Asia. Its eastern shore is a part of Jordan, and the southern half of its western shore belongs to Israel. As for the northern half of the western shore, it lies within the Palestinian West Bank and has been under Israeli occupation since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. The Jordan River, from which the Dead Sea takes almost all of its water, flows from the north into the lake.

And what is so extraordinary about the Dead Sea? Well, it has the lowest elevation and is the lowest body of water on the surface of Earth. However, it isn’t the saltiest lake on earth. The lake that comes first in levels of saltiness is Don Juan Pond in Antarctica, at more than 40% salinity. The Dead Sea has just over 34% salinity, according to the latest measurements.

For several decades, the standard value given for the surface level of the lake was some 1,300ft below sea level. However, in the 1960s, Jordan and Israel began diverting much of the Jordan River’s flow and used excessive amounts of water from the lake for commercial purposes. As a result, there was a considerable drop in the Dead Sea’s water level. By 2010, the measurement of the lake level was more than 100ft below the mid-20th-century measurements. Approximately 1,410ft below sea level, but the lake continued to drop by about 3ft annually.

Facts about the Dead Sea

The Dead Sea is just between the hills of Judaea to the west and the Transjordanian plateaus to the east. Before the water level began dropping, the lake was about 50 miles long, attained a maximum width of 11 miles, and had a surface area of about 394 square miles. The peninsula of Al-Lisān divided the lake on its eastern side into two unequal basins. These are the northern basin which includes about three-fourths of the lake’s total surface area and reached a depth of 1,300 ft. And, the southern basin was much smaller and shallower, less than 10 ft deep on average.

Until the 8th century CE, only the area around the northern basin was inhabited, and the lake had a slightly lower lever than nowadays. It rose to its highest level, 1,275 ft below sea level, in 1896 but receded again after 1935. It then stabilized at about 1,300 ft below sea level for several decades.

In the late 20th century, the drop of water at the lake’s level changed the physical appearance of the Dead Sea. Meaning that the peninsula of Al-Lisān gradually extended eastward resulting in the separation of the lake’s northern and southern basins by a strip of dry land. Moreover, the southern basin was eventually subdivided into dozens of large evaporation pools, used for the extraction of salt, so by the 21st century, it gradually ceased to be a natural body of water. Despite the loss of water, the northern basin, which is now the actual Dead Sea, retained its overall dimensions. And this happened because its shoreline was immersed downward suddenly from the surrounding landscape.

The Dead Sea region occupies part of a graben, which is a lowered sunken land. It is basically between transform faults along a tectonic plate boundary that runs northward from the Red Sea. It also spreads to the centre of a convergent plate boundary in the Taurus Mountains of southern Turkey. Lastly, the eastern boundary, along the edge of the Moab Plateau, is more visible from the lake than is the western fault.

Dead Sea – Climate

The Dead Sea lies in a desert and that’s why there’s minimum rainfall. Al-Lisān averages about 2.5 inches of annual rain and the industrial area of Sedom (near historical Sodom) only about 2 inches. Because of the lake’s extremely low elevation and covered location, winter temperatures are mild. Temperatures average within 63 °F in January at the southern end at Sedom and 58 °F at the northern end. And freezing temperatures never occur in the area.

Summer is really hot, averaging 93 °F in August at Sedom, with a recorded maximum of 124 °F. The evaporation of the lake’s waters often creates a thick mist above the lake. On the rivers, the atmospheric humidity varies from 45% in May to 62% in October. Lake and land common breezes blow off the lake in all directions during the daytime. Then the direction is reversed and blows toward the centre of the lake at night.

During winter and spring, the high water from the Jordan River creates an inflow once averaged some 45.5 billion cubic feet annually. But, the subsequent commercial activities performed in Jordan’s waters reduced the river’s flow to a small fraction of the previous amount. And as aforementioned, this was the principal cause for the drop in the Dead Sea’s water level.

There are 4 main streams that descend to the lake from Jordan to the east through deep gorges. These are the Wadis: Al-ʿUẓaymī, Zarqāʾ Māʿīn, Al-Mawjib, and Al-Ḥasā. There are also many other wadis and streams that flow intermittently from the neighboring heights and from the depression of Wadi Al-ʿArabah. There are also thermal sulfur springs that feed the rivers. During winter and spring, the evaporation in summer and the inflow of water, cause noticeable seasonal variations of 12 to 24 inches in the level of the lake. However, those fluctuations have been outshined by the dramatic annual drops in the Dead Sea’s surface level.

Can Boats Sail on the Dead Sea?

As a matter of fact, there are numerous biblical stories about the Dead Sea. The most known story is how King Herod used it as a spa because the Dead Sea was just at the border of Israel. It also states the story that how King David had made it into his retreat and other stories mentioned in the Bible.

But, what does Science have to say about the place? Because it’s not logical to just rely on conclusions and implications on religious texts. And, this is the reason why you should reconsider the idea of sailing a boat into the Dead Sea. As aforementioned, the salt content of the water body is so high that no organism can survive there – just microbial life. And so, the ships cannot sail through the water, there either. This is because the salt content prohibits any living organism from getting into the body of water. 

And, to answer the raised question precisely, sailboats cannot sail in the Dead Sea. You might think that the salt increases the density of the water and thus making it easier for you to sail through it. Maybe even feel like flying through it. But consider this: Just like the salt increases the density of the water body, it also makes the area lacking living organisms. No marine life can survive in the Dead Sea and no flora and fauna can survive around it either. Subsequently, the level of salt in the water makes it impossible for the ship to move on the water body as well. 

However, this also depends upon the type of ship. But, according to That depends entirely upon the ship, but according to Archimedes, if the mass of the ship is less than the buoyancy of the ship, it will float. So, ships that would sink in the ocean might also be able to float in the Dead Sea. On the other hand, it is also slightly denser than seawater and it would take less water to equal the mass of the ship. And, of course, without Archimedes, the shipping industry might not even exist!

The Bottom Line

Surprisingly, boats can actually sink on the Dead Sea if they are turned upside down or on end. The Dead Sea is denser than the human body. And, this is why we can easily float on it but a boat turned upside down or on end is denser than the Dead Sea, and thus it can sink. Of course, if a normal boat stays upright then it shouldn’t sink and therefore it can sail. The sea and the ocean are life-giving sources. It is a prevalent idea to depict the ocean as the womb of life. It is from where many living organisms give birth, grow up, and die. Even scientifically speaking, there would be no life at all if there wasn’t enough water on the planet.