The seas cover over two thirds of our planet and yet most of us live our lives on land, creatures of a different element, at once fascinated and terrified by the beauty and power of these great bodies of water. There are some, though, who go to sea, who get to know its many moods – the tranquil and glittering, the raging and ripple-swept – and who bring back with them their stories of wonder and warning. Hannah Stowe is one such sea-goer and one such storyteller.
Raised at the tide’s edge on the Pembrokeshire coast, Stowe went to sea straight after school and has worked on and studied the ocean in depth ever since. She has navigated some of the most beautiful waters on our planet, but she has also experienced the sea’s fearsome force at first hand, having been thrown from her surfboard and left with ongoing spinal injuries. In shimmering, fluid prose, Stowe weaves together the story of her own changing relationship to the sea with the bigger story of the damage we have done to its ecosystems and the lessons we can learn from its rich ecological variety and its unceasing ebb and flow. As Stowe introduces us to six totemic marine creatures – the fire crow, the sperm whale, the wandering albatross, the humpback whale, the shearwater and the barnacle – she encourages us to fall in love with the seas as she has, to appreciate their majesty and their vulnerability. This is a heartfelt hymn to the sea and an unforgettable introduction to one of the most gifted nature writers of the new generation.