For the past 30 summers, I\u2019ve returned to a rugged stretch of northerly Cape Cod beach that lies on the far side of a steep clay dune. Toes dug into the sand, I\u2019ve discussed with my fellow beachgoers the changes to the scene: the deepening curve of the coastline, the higher break of the waves, the influx of red or bulbous seaweed, the washing back out to sea of that 18th-century shipwreck. Little have any of us known that we haven\u2019t just been passing the time with polite conversation. We\u2019ve been sharing the kind of information that\u2019s highly valued by the natural navigator, a seaman who can sail from shore to distant shore using only the tools provided by the Earth, the sky, and the water. But what\u2019s the significance of this information to the casual observer?<\/p>\n
The third book by British explorer and sailor Tristan Gooley provides the answer. Hardly a dry manual, How to Read Water: Clues and Patterns from Puddles to the Sea<\/em> combines elements of natural navigation history, techniques for observing the weather and the way waves hit the shore, and personal narrative to encourage readers to become something eminently more attainable than professional navigators: engaged noticers. Anyone who\u2019s ever remarked on the changing tides already has one foot on that path.<\/p>\n Not every chapter in the book deals directly with the ocean\u2014some pertain to reading the movements in puddles or how the sun reflects off a stream. But each provides at least a small clue to also reading the ocean. If you can learn to read the \u201cripple map\u201d of conflicting swell patterns around a clump of water lilies in a pond, for example, you can begin to understand the swell patterns that develop around islands, too.<\/p>\n Gooley\u2019s language is evocative, but the book\u2019s 30 color photos are nevertheless a welcome supplement. The images elucidate the nature of glitter paths on water and backwash marks on sand, the difference between a \u201ckissing\u201d and a \u201ckidney-shaped\u201d rise, and the way wake patterns change shadows, providing their own kind of visual poetry. But the best part of the book may be the references to the ancient Marshall Islanders, whose navigational techniques form the backbone of Gooley\u2019s own methods, and which he is ultimately describing here. The Marshallese could find an island by feeling the way the waves hit their canoes, by watching the position of the Sun, by noting where certain sea animals were feeding and, of course, by following those ripple maps. In an era of lidar and GPS, such abilities seem almost supernatural. But this book gives hope that we, too, can evolve into skilled water-watchers, with a little practice.<\/p>\n How to Read Water: Clues and Patterns from Puddles to the Sea A poetic treatise on the art of natural navigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13115,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"acf":{"hero_video_url":null,"hero_video_caption":"","deck":"A poetic treatise on the art of natural navigation.","authors_group":[{"by_group":"by","contributors_group":[15622]}],"word_count_override":"","podbean1":"","podbean2":"","redirect":"","geolocation":null,"related":[16695,16689],"twitterimage":19797,"facebookimage":19389,"twitterdescription":"","edited":"","factchecked":"","code":"","no_old_story_flag":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article-short\/16686"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article-short"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/custom_quick"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article-short\/16686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20600,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article-short\/16686\/revisions\/20600"}],"acf:post":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article-short\/16689"},{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article-short\/16695"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nBy Tristan Gooley
\n400 pp. The Experiment<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"