On Swimming the Gulf of Aqaba

The desert peaks and cliffs of Saudi Arabia are visible just some 20 kilometers across the Gulf of Aqaba, and they look exactly the same as the desert peaks and cliffs in Sinai. Simeon and I are sitting in plastic chairs on the flat roof above the cabanas of Sindbad Camp in Dahab, having our morning cappuccinos. It's not so easy to get a cappuccino in Dahab, not a good one anyway, but Sindbad Camp has a cappuccino machine in it's kitchen, and though the coffee is expensive-- about one euro, the price of a big breakfast-- it is good to drink while sitting in the morning sunshine looking out across the Gulf of Aqaba.

 "Maybe I’ll swim over to the Saudi side," I say. 

"Surely you jest," says Simeon with a cough. He'd been smoking a shisha pipe with a Bedouin the night before.

"I might be able to pull it off—I’m a strong swimmer," I say.

"But the water is deceptively cold," says Simeon. "Haven't you noticed that the divers all wear wetsuits?"

"Maybe I can borrow a wetsuit."

"And it’s a busy shipping channel—without an escort boat you may very well be run down by a freighter."

"I'll wear a fluorescent orange bathing cap, or maybe an escort boat would be cheap," I say.

 

"And it’s a bloody long way—the furthest you’ve swum non-stop is 4 kilometers, and that in a swimming pool— that's the sea out there, with it's currents and tides and sea monsters of all sorts."

"Mermaids, maybe," I say.

"Or giant squids," says Simeon, sipping his coffee. "And if you did manage to reach Saudi you would surely be arrested, as you would be entering the Kingdom without a visa, or anything but your bathing costume and fluorescent orange bathing cap." 

"But it is possible," I say. "There was that Ukranian girl in 2004 who did it. She’d fallen out with her parents while the family was on holiday and swum to Saudi Arabia. She was only 18. No plan, just a spontaneous, 'I think I'll swim across to Saudi Arabia.' She’d been returned to her family, but hell, she’d swum across the Gulf of Aqaba, she’ll always have that."

"She was also a Ukranian swimming champion," says Simeon. "And why would you need that, you've already walked from Portugal to Turkey, and from Port Said to Cairo, and cycled through the Alps, and all for good causes. What would the point be in swimming to Saudi Arabia?"

"A swim to ban the burkha. Unless you really want to wear it. And if you do want to wear a burkha they'll be available in different colors and materials. You can wear a satiny fluorescent pink burkha or a godzilla suit burkha. As I stumble ashore I'll yell it out. 'Ban the burkha!'"

"You're mad," says Simeon. "You'll be put in prison or flogged, or they'll pull you out of the sea with grappling hooks before you reach shore. And a godzilla suit burkha would merely be a godzilla suit."

"Whatever. Anyway, they were very kind to the Ukranian girl," I say. "They fed her and took her to the hospital."

"She wasn't yelling out, 'Ban the burkha!' either."

"She didn't have to yell it out as she was probably in a bikini, which is a 'ban the burkha' statement in itself." 

"Their kindness may very well have been because she was an eighteen year old Ukranian girl in a bikini. But, yes, by all means wear a bikini then, and you shan't have to yell out anything if you happen to survive the swim," says Simeon. 

"Or I could swim up the coast, to Eilat, finally set foot upon Israeli sand," I say.

"You're certain to fail," says Simeon.

"That's true," I say. "I'm banned from Israel forever and ever, like an unwanted drunken sailor banned from a bar."

"It's much worse than that, I'm afraid," says Simeon.

"Yeah," I say with a sigh. "Fun to think about these things, though. You up for a little freediving?"

"A bit of yoga first, I should think," says Simeon.

"Namaste," I say.

A False Dilemma?

I was sitting at a café, one which might be found somewhere in Istanbul, and Simeon was puffing away on a nargile. Simeon was also drinking a dark, amber tea from a shapely little glass, while I had a nearly black Turkish coffee in front of me. Simeon took a deep hit off of the nargile, using his right hand to guide the pipe's billowing smoke so as to allow it to envelope his hairy head.

"Somehow it's not at all like smoking a fine cigar," he said. "With the fruity flavour the smoke actually seems to expand the lungs, as if one had just had an invigorating swim."

"It's a bit like drinking a fruity alcoholic beverage, I think, Simeon. You don't realize you're consuming poison until it's too late."

"Perhaps," he said. "Nevertheless..."

And he took another hit from the nargile.

A woman walked past with a little dog on a lead, and the dog had a little poo on the sidewalk. Then the woman and the little dog continued their journey.

"Seems a bit anti-social, leaving your dog's poo on the pavement," said Simeon.

"Maybe so," I said. "But I'm not sure what's worse, having to step over dogshit on the sidewalk or having to deal with anti-dogshit laws. The other day I was walking Bella out to the fields, where she is free to have a poo anywhere she likes, but she didn't make it that far, and she had a poo on the grass near a lamp post. It was a little patch of grass, and in a part of Aldenhoven where the patches of grass are littered with rubbish, and where no one walks on the grass, so I was fine with Bella having her kaken there, and an old woman observed from a distance of some 20 meters-- just standing there, observing, with nothing better to do-- and when I saw her standing there watching, I knew exactly what was coming once I left without having picked up the doggy doo doo, and sure enough, when I turned away and headed towards the fields, she had some severe words for me which I didn't understand, and I completely ignored her, and into the fields we went where Bella kakened and pissened and ran about and had a grand old time. And when we returned, there was the old woman, talking to an elderly man, and she was vehement, and the only word I undestood and heard over and over was "Scheiße", and she glared at me, and the old man too, and I thought I might have a poo on the sidewalk where they stood, but decided against it and walked away. And then I remembered the man I'd seen the other day, begging for coins outside of the supermarket, and I'd been angry about that, and I wondered if these two old dog poo patrollers were at all angry about there being people in their little town who had to beg in front of supermarkets to get by, and I thought that if all the dog poo patrollers in the world put the same energy into alleviating hunger and poverty as they did dog poo patrolling and pointing at violators and perhaps even identifying them in police lineups-- if they put half of their poo patrolling energy into alleviating hunger, there might be more dogshit lying about, but fewer people begging."

"I see your point, old chap," said Simeon. "There may be a bit of a false dilemma in your argument, though. It doesn't have to be poo or poverty. One can be a crusader against dog poo and against poverty I should think."

"No, Simeon," I said. "I've never met an anti-dog poo crusader who cared about people in poverty. You see, it's not really about the dog poo. They don't really give a shit about poo. It's about the opportunity to finger someone who is breaking a rule or a law. You know, the tattletale of primary school. Gives them a feeling of power. Bastards. Gives them a feeling of power to see people begging too. And to call the cops on them."

Simeon was puffing a little too heartily on the nargile, and he began to cough.

"Uh, huh," I said. "Poison."

"Perhaps you should take the bloody thing for a bit," he said, passing the tube to me.

"No thanks, Simeon. I've quit."

"But surely," he began, then stopped to cough a bit more. "Surely," he said, after regaining his composure, "surely you would be put out if you were to sink your shoe into a fresh dog poo. Surely you would curse the person who had left the poo there. Or the dog, or perhaps the both of them?"

"Not at all, Simeon. Shit happens."

Simeon chuckled politely at the cliché.

"Indeed," he said."Where shall we cycle to next, to have our next little conversation?"

"I know a place in Dahab, on the Gulf of Aqaba," I said. "We can do a little freediving, then go to Sindbad camp, hang out there."

"Off we go then," he said. "Mind the doggy poo!"