Tides

January 2, 2017
Conservationist White (Talking on the Water) combines scientific investigation with personal memoir in this solid examination of the nature of tides and waves. He looks at how tides are affected regularly by the moon and how they in turn affect both humans and sea life. White grew up surfing, diving, sailing, and fishing in coastal waters, and for years navigated the Pacific Northwest archipelago aboard his schooner, Crusader. Setting out to learn more about the tides, he identifies four zones of tidal exposure: the splash zone and the high, middle, and low intertidal zones. Sections about monster swells near Half Moon Bay, Calif., prove especially fascinating. At a spot named Mavericks, 20-foot waves attract surfers from around the world every winter. White also describes the changing tide in Venice, Italy, where residents have for decades dealt with flooding in lower elevations and consider its vicissitudes a normal feature of life. With an eye on the future, White outlines ways in which tidal energy can be “harnessed as a source of heat and light,” citing the importance of a supportive government and the need for strong renewable energy policies—ideals with which many readers will agree. Color photos.

January 1, 2017
Anyone inclined to take the movement of the tides for granted will think twice after reading this wide-ranging study from a conservationist and avid sailor.White (Talking on the Water: Conversations about Nature and Creativity, 1994) chronicles his travels around the globe watching the tides go in and out, often pausing to reflect on the history of the still-incomplete human understanding of their workings. At the site of one of the highest tides in the world, close to the Arctic Circle in Canada, he ventured under the ice left behind by the retreating tide with an Inuit guide to hunt for mussels, finding himself in a "dreamlike state...inside the body of the ocean." In southern Chile, White was awed by the "seesaw" motion where two large oceans, whose tides are out of sync, meet. In England, he assisted at a "tidemill," where the movement of the tide is harnessed to grind grain, and he ponders the future use of "tide energy," which is still in its infancy. While intricate explanations of the mathematics and science behind the workings of the tides may leave some readers baffled, White always returns to the solid ground of personal experience. Graphs and line drawings illustrate the principles, and a series of photographs of places taken at both high and low tide serve as reminders of the dazzling power of this everyday change. If the author sometimes strays from his ostensible subject to focus on surfers riding enormous waves or to interview monks whose monastery is daily separated from the mainland by the tides, he always finds his way back to the dance between the sun, the moon, and the waters of Earth. White's heightened awareness of the planet's "cosmic beat" is bound to make readers more sensitive to the mysteries of what might otherwise seem commonplace.

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