I’ve swam in freezing cold water before. I’ve also swam in ridiculously hot water before. Some bodies of water have been salty, some have been fresh. Some have been crystal clear like the water off the coast of Hawaii, and others have had pools of cloud. But there was something quite differentabout the water that I swam in yesterday in the Yellow Sea. And unfortunately, some of that difference I can attribute to the sewage slowly making its way into the sea as we later discovered. But other differences included the noticeably high salt level and the murky appearance of the water, perhaps brought about by the massive number of bodies in the water kicking up mud.

I did some research on the Yellow Sea upon returning home and I guess it was named because of the sand particles that come from the Gobi desert during storms. Additionally deposits of sand from rivers that flow into it contribute to it’s naming. However, the water didn’t look particularly yellow when I was there . . . mostly just muddy. I guess if you filter out the browns from the picture below there might be some noteworthy yellow. But regardless, swimming in a “sea” is quite different than swimming in an ocean.

Swimming in Korea is also quite different than swimming in America. Us foreigners were some of the only people at the beach not wearing a sun shirt over our suits.  It can make you feel pretty exposed when you are one of perhaps 5 people wearing a two piece bathing suit on the whole beach . . . Also who would have guessed that we were suppose to pack our camping tent for our day trip to the beach! It was just as common for families to be lounging around in a tent as it was for them to be lounging under an umbrella. We were some of the only people doing neither of these things.

One of the really cool aspects of this beach was a shore walk that bordered the sea along some rocks on one of the sides of the beach. We wandered along this path to see where it went and to get some distant views of the beach. At the end of this poorly maintained route there was a tea and coffee shack sitting on the water. Oh I forgot- You could also buy some silkworms to eat as a snack for 3000won on you way walking . . . (!!!) We got to the shack  though just in time to be shooed back by the locals there who warned us that if we didn’t head back at that exact moment, that the tide would trap us out there or we’d have to swim back. Guess we weren’t going to have time for a coffee break. The tide was moving remarkably fast! Check out how much it changed in just 20 minutes of walking there and back.