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Water and Light - A Diver's Journey to a Coral Reef (Paperback, New edition) Loot Price: R633
Discovery Miles 6 330
Water and Light - A Diver's Journey to a Coral Reef (Paperback, New edition): Stephen Harrigan

Water and Light - A Diver's Journey to a Coral Reef (Paperback, New edition)

Stephen Harrigan

Series: Southwestern Writers Collection Series, Wittliff Collections at Texas State University

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Loot Price R633 Discovery Miles 6 330 | Repayment Terms: R59 pm x 12*

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A leisurely tour of the coral reefs of Grand Turk Island, where novelist Harrigan (Jacob's Well, 1984) learns about nature and himself. Diving has always meant a great deal to Harrigan, but now, living far from the sea and worried that the activity is becoming nothing more than a hobby, he decides to spend an extensive period diving in the Caribbean. There, he will "study the natural history of the coral reef, but the motivation was not as clear or, perhaps, as worthy. I wanted to be, at least for a time, my underwater self." He checks into a local motel on the island - a desolate and relatively unspoiled place where salt was once collected from inland pans - and begins his diving explorations. As he explores the reefs, dives down part of the great wall that edges the nearby 7,000-foot-deep channel, and chats to locals, Harrigan relates old diving adventures as far apart as Australia and Mexico. He observes the variety of fish and plant life, explains that coral is actually an animal, not a plant, and includes such diving lore as the story of the development of the aqualung - an invention that, as Jacques Cousteau wrote, meant that "From this day forward we would swim across miles of country no man had known." Catching conches for his dinner, Harrigan laments the decline of the sea-turtle, "a great being, venerable, unknowable," and admits to being angry with dolphins because he fails to interest them. Hoping to be transformed by the reef, his underwater destiny acknowledged, he ruefully realizes how indifferent the teeming underwater world is to his presence. He is ready to go home. A graceful and low-keyed celebration of diving and the dazzling underwater world it reveals, as much for the underwater enthusiast as for the armchair traveler. (Kirkus Reviews)
"Moving, intelligent and, in the best sense, literary.... Stephen Harrigan is anchored in reality; he knows that the environment he's describing is in serious jeopardy. At the same time, he has made this book sparkle with his remarkable ability to discuss the metaphysical and spiritual aspects of underwater exploration without ever sounding saccharine or murky." -- New York Times Book Review "[Harrigan] tells us about the people who live on Grand Turk, or come there on business, and he is given to reflecting on the subtleties of the underwater experience, but his real virtue as a writer is his ability to convey, in precise, lucid, prose, the marvels of the sea bottom." -- New Yorker "Harrigan ...captures the peacefulness of being rocked by salty currents, the massive beauty of the reefs, the exhilaration of the sport, and the mental scramble to retain fast-fading memories of sights almost unimaginable on land. Fellow divers will relish his camaraderie, while those who prefer staying topside will feel as though they've taken the plunge themselves." -- Booklist

This evocative account of the months Stephen Harrigan spent diving on the coral reefs off Grand Turk Island in the Caribbean was originally published by Houghton Mifflin in 1992.

General

Imprint: University Of Texas Press
Country of origin: United States
Series: Southwestern Writers Collection Series, Wittliff Collections at Texas State University
Release date: May 1999
First published: 1999
Authors: Stephen Harrigan
Dimensions: 210 x 140 x 23mm (L x W x T)
Format: Paperback - Trade / Trade
Pages: 287
Edition: New edition
ISBN-13: 978-0-292-73120-2
Categories: Books > Language & Literature > Biography & autobiography > General
Books > Science & Mathematics > Biology, life sciences > Hydrobiology > Marine biology
Books > Biography > General
LSN: 0-292-73120-5
Barcode: 9780292731202

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