Essence

When it comes down to it, life on Earth (and possibly pretty much anywhere else in the omniverse for that matter), would simply not be possible without water, the incredible magic that two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen can conjure up between them. And so for me water is the essence of life. We live on a wet planet. We are watery beings. This is going to be a water blog.

It's a pretty remarkable substance that, as we all know, exists abundantly in three states: solid (ice), liquid (it happens to be raining in the jewel of the north as I write tonight, watering our gardens, filling our rivers, returning to our lakes, seas and oceans from whence it came) and gas (clouds, steam, water vapour). All of this is fairly obvious, of course - which is why we so often take it for granted - but without it, crops fail, lands become dustbowls and living creatures die of dehydration. 60% of the weight of the average person is accounted for by water (which is why jockeys frequent the sauna to sweat off excess pounds.) What's the longest a human being can survive without water? I believe it's about 100 hours.

magical H2O

I'm sure we all learned in school that 70% of the planet's surface is covered with water. There are five oceans (Arctic, Atlantic, Indian, Pacific and Southern aka Antarctic), though in reality there is only one continuous body of water, because each ocean links to at least two others. Which, before the advent of the aeroplane, made it the natural way to travel between those landed parts of the globe that constitute the other 30%. In addition there are around fifty seas out there, many as sub-divisions of oceans (the Gulf of Mexico, Sargasso or South China Sea for instance), some as adjuncts (the Baltic and the Mediterranean are obvious ones), and some are completely land-locked (like the Caspian and the Dead Sea). They all share one thing in common: saltiness. Then there are the freshwater lakes that are just too numerous to mention. Nearly every country has some of these. I'm fortunate to be within a couple of hours travel of the Lake District. Finland, amazingly, has 187,888 of them!

Clearly, statistically, there ought to be enough water around for everyone and everything. It's just that sometimes it doesn't happen to be in the right place, which is where irrigation projects, pipelines, water  bottling factories and even desalination plants come in. They variously help take it to where it's needed and make it fit for consumption if necessary - for salty water is not particularly useful.

Many is the harrowing story of sailors adrift on ocean or sea surrounded by miles of water but none of it fit to drink. Ships set off with fresh water in abundance (originally in wooden barrels, latterly in tanks) but if there is a catastrophe and the supply runs out or the ship sinks and the sailors find themselves adrift, floating in a dinghy...

70% proof

...and it occurred to me to wonder exactly why drinking salt water is not a good thing (even in extremis ). Here's the reason (and it's all to do with diffusion and osmosis). We may not think of our bodily fluids as being salty, but they are. Try licking sweat or tears. However, sea water is almost four times as salty as our bodily fluids, and if we consume quantities of sea water our cells try and redress the 4:1 imbalance in salt concentration by osmosis, moving water from inside the cells in an attempt to dilute and equalise the sodium concentration outside the cells, causing the cells to shrink. At the same time, the kidneys increase the body's instinct to urinate, to flush out excess sodium, meaning that an individual urinates more water than (s)he is consuming and dehydration sets in. The body tries to compensate for fluid loss by increasing heart-rate and constricting blood vessels to maintain pressure to vital organs. Nausea and delirium ensue and if fresh water is not taken in to reverse the effects of excess sodium then blood flow to the brain and vital organs becomes further impaired, leading to coma, organ failure and death. Now you know. Water is the essence. Stay hydrated, people.

However, when it comes to Mer lore, the usual rules clearly don't apply. 

In Greenwich, Meantime...

...in the middle of a twinkling spring night

tarry waterfront taverns exhale their breath

of stale ale upon tangy estuarine air while

beneath the eaves of The Eight Bells, 

The Flower of Kent, The Golden Anchor,

The Sea-Witch, The Painters Arms and

a dozen more, drunken sailors loudly snore,

spiralling down into foamy sea dreams.

Some lie entwined with favourite whores,

others singly tossing on a tide of reveries.

Ocean bright meridian whispers salt the ears

of these leathery sleepers while their ships 

undulate in darkness on the greasy Thames. 

Among them a sea poet, rapt in the arms 

of his merlove, spouts his watery lay lines

until dawn's first seagull laughs him awake.

Still muttering the refrain Leileine, Leileine,

he takes up pen and notebook and adds hers

to the perfectly acceptable list of names for

mermaids to have. It is only later, after coffee

and a pipe, that he smiles to recall her shape,

the swelling of her belly, promise of his child.

For who on earth or sea could quite believe

it feasible that a mermaid should conceive?

tattoo artist unknown

That's all folks. Thanks for reading, S ;-)