Kotor & the Extraordinary Properties of Water - October 2025
- Cynthia Zager Godwin
- Oct 29
- 4 min read
In this post:
Trip to a Walled City in the former Yugoslavia
Extraordinary Properties of Water
Did God Create Evil?
Pictures and Video from Montenegro
Update on "A Choice of Sides"
Trip to a Walled City in the former Yugoslavia
We toured the ancient walled city of Kotor in Montenegro. We entered through the Sea Gate and walked the narrow winding streets filled with shops and restaurants. It was Sunday and the church bells tolled. Amidst clouds of incense, chanting worshippers filled the eastern orthodox church. I was happy to visit a church and see it full of people.
Later, we took a speedboat out to the Blue Cave. The Blue Cave is located on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. The water is a crystal-clear aqua color that deepens to azure blue. Gorgeous!
For that reason, I thought I’d write about water in this post. Jump down for pictures and videos of Montenegro.
Amazing Properties of Water
In the first chapter of the first book in the Bible, the Lord God mentions water many, many times. Since he mentions water so often, there must be something extraordinary about it. In fact, without water - no life would exist!
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” God made the expanse, and separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse. Then God said, “Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear; and it was so. God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas; (Genesis 1: 1-2, 6-7, 9-10 NET)
Why is liquid water so special?
Water is great at retaining heat. It takes a long time to heat up and a long time to cool down. How does Earth stay a comfortable average temperature of 59° F (15° C)? Due to the circulation of warm water from the equator to the cold arctic and back.
This is handy since Earth’s temperatures can range from a whopping 136°F (58° C) in Libya to a teeth-chattering, minus 136° F (-93° C) in Antarctica.
Water is called the universal solvent. That’s because it can dissolve almost anything. How else would the body get vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbs, fats, hormones, and everything else vital to life, to each one of its cells?
Water has a high surface tension. This is convenient for plants and trees who need to beat gravity and transport water up to their leaves.
When most stuff freezes, it becomes denser and sinks. Not water! Water floats when it freezes. That matters if you’re a fish, and would prefer not to spend the winter as a fish-flavored popsicle.
Water also freezes at a much higher temperature than it should, based on its small size of only one oxygen atom and two hydrogens. High in the atmosphere, the temperature drops to -70° F (-57 ° C). At that temperature, oxygen and nitrogen are still gases.
But not water! Water promptly freezes and falls back to Earth. If it didn’t, energy from sunlight would break water into oxygen and hydrogen. The super light hydrogen would float off into space like a party balloon.
I could go on and on about water, but you get the idea. The Lord was doing something special when he created water. If he put that much thought into making something as mundane as water, how much more thought do you think he put into creating each one of us?
Did God Create Evil?
A lot of times I hear people say, there's so much evil in the world, I can't believe God exists. Or if God was a good God, he would not allow evil. If you're in that category, I'll leave you with this question - Did God create evil? If you said, yes, think again! (The answer below is condensed from a much longer reference I can no longer find.)
Can you measure cold? Science does not have a single instrument that measures the absence of thermal energy, called cold. Cold is the absence of heat.
Can you measure darkness? Again, science does not have a device that measures the absence of photons, called darkness. We can measure the inverse of darkness, called light, but not darkness. Darkness is the absence of light.
Evil then is the absence of God. The absence of everything good, and right, and beautiful. Don’t get mad at God for the evil in the world. He didn’t create evil.
Evil is what you get when you leave God out of the equation.
Pictures and Video from Montenegro
Update on "A Choice of Sides"
I can talk about, “A Choice of Sides,” my novel again. I had to remove social media posts about it, since it was entered in an American Christian Fiction Writers competition. Although, it did not win one of the top three ACFW Speculative Fiction awards, I was overjoyed it placed in the top eight!
How important is marketing? AI was used to design the cover posted here. Everyone who looked at it said, “Oh, it’s YA.” Since my novel is not “young adult,” but for science fiction readers of all ages, who like high adventure with a little romance, I will need to design a new cover.
Next step: find an illustrator to do a map of the planet since my characters cover a lot of ground in the story.
Copyright 2025 Cynthia Zager Godwin
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