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.