Spring Tides

    Spring Tides is a breath of sea air, and I couldn't love it more!

    I read a fair amount of nature writing but it's mostly concerned with environments on land, so this book has been a refreshing change and one with great personal resonance.

    Dr. Fiona Gell is a marine biologist living and working on the Isle of Man - which for those not familiar with it is a small island in the middle of the Irish Sea. Mann has its own language, Manx Gaelic, the oldest continuous parliament in the world, Tynwald, still going strong after 1000 years, a rich tradition of custom, belief, and folklore, and outstanding natural beauty. I was born there and spent my childhood on its beaches, swimming in the sea from late spring through the summer months, examining rock pools and visiting the local aquarium, so every page of this book brings back very happy memories for me. But even if you've never heard of the island itself or thought much about sea life in general you'll find a great deal to enjoy in Spring Tides. Fiona wears her learning lightly but the book is full of knowledge, and couple that with her palpable enthusiasm for her subject and her homeland, and you'll find your eyes and your mind opened to the sea and its creatures in a new way.

    Fiona is a natural communicator and as she talks about her early days in marine biology and her work as a marine conservation officer and climate change specialist, she describes the interconnectivity and interdependence of sea and land, the necessity for community involvement, cooperation, and often compromise to find solutions which work for all, and how the ocean is "the hard-working life-support system that surrounds us". The establishment of a successful Marine Nature Reserve in Ramsey Bay at the north of the Isle of Man shows just what can be achieved when the interests of fishermen are balanced with the need for habitat care. But while the news is not always good, much that is positive and forward-looking has come out of this and similar schemes, and with Fiona and her like stewarding our seas, there is certainly cause for optimism.

    Fiona's personal story is woven through this account of her professional life and this gives the book even more heart. She draws on her family history of generations closely connected to the sea, and now with her own young son she's even more acutely aware of the urgent need to protect and conserve the ocean and its life. Adding further distinction are the book's chapter epigraphs - snatches of poetry or snippets of old Manx stories, the vivid descriptions of close encounters of the maritime kind, and those transcendent moments when the beauty of the natural world takes your breath away.

    For all these reasons and more this book is a joy!

Comments

[Kathleen]

On my list. I trust your choices completely ! How I miss the sea...

[Teresa]

Thank you Karen, as an island dweller myself I cannot resist the picture you have painted of this beguiling book 📚