Naked In | The Azov Sea [portable]

I realized I wasn't naked anymore. I was just in the sea. The concept of "naked" requires a society to see you. Out here, there was no society. There was only the salt on my lips, the silt under my nails, and the gentle lapping of the smallest sea in the world against my skin.

For years, I had heard the jokes about the Azov: It’s not a sea, it’s a puddle. You can walk across it. The water is the color of tea. And they aren’t wrong. At its deepest, the Azov barely scratches 15 meters. But that lack of depth is exactly what makes it the most liberating stretch of water I have ever slipped into.

Swimming nude in the Azov is not an erotic experience. It is a pediatric one. It reminds you what it felt like to be three years old in a bathtub. naked in the azov sea

The Salt and the Silence: Finding Freedom Naked in the Sea of Azov

After wading out about 100 meters, the water was still only up to my navel. I looked back. The shore was a thin line. Looking down through the turbid, plankton-rich water, I could see the sandy bottom. I could see my own feet, and the shadow of the rest of me rippling on the floor of this ancient sea. I realized I wasn't naked anymore

I lay back, floating on the surface. The high salinity—three times less salty than the Mediterranean, but salty enough to hold you—cradled my lower back. For the first time in months, my spine felt no gravity.

Then I dropped.

The water is famously shallow, so it warms all the way through. There is no cold shock to make you gasp. Consequently, there is no shame. When you take your clothes off in the Black Sea, you feel brave. When you take them off in the Azov, you feel sensible. Why would you wear a wet rag in a lukewarm soup?