Cat’s Paws on Water
When a gust of wind touches the surface of calm water, it creates a localised patch of bigger ripples. These can be seen as a…
Tag: sea
The Difference Between Waves and Swell
One of the commonest questions ocean watchers ask is: What is the difference between waves and swell? The concise answer is: “Swell is best thought…
Slick Lines
I noticed a good example of ‘slick lines’ in the sea from an aircraft the other day. These calmer lines are formed when a thin…
Optical Illusions at Night
The human brain does a lot of things that we’re not aware of. It takes shortcuts and most of the time that saves us time.…
Water Signs
For readers of ‘How to Read Water‘ there are a couple of images you might enjoy below. The first shows a dog admiring a starboard…
Rip Current Recollections
My thanks to John Luke for this email and this fantastic photo of the Saltstraumen maelstrom. ——– Your rip current story brought memories flooding back…
Beach Cusps, Rips and Light
My thanks to Helen Sargent for sending in the following fabulous photo of beach cusps at the cove neighbouring Durdle Door in Dorset. Helen also…
Sand Collars
My thanks to Ian Ward and John Angus for making me aware of a curious beach phenomenon known as ‘sand collars’. The eggs of a…
The Tombolo
A tombolo is a thin strip of sand or shingle that is formed by wave action around an island. The new thin strip of…
Joshua Slocum and the Birds
My thanks to Pertti Pesonen for reminding me of these passages in Joshua Slocum’s classic, ‘Sailing Alone Around the World’: On the 12th, some hundred…
Reading Water in San Francisco
A massive thank you to Zina Deretsky in California, who got in touch because she is a wild swimmer who loves reading water. Zina is…
Tudor Navigation
I went to an interesting talk about navigation methods used at the time of the Mary Rose last night. It was given by Rear Admiral…
The Colour of the Sea as a Map
For thousands of years, sailors have used the colour of the sea to help them make sense of the waters they travelled through. In many…
A Sand Colour Mystery
If you study the picture below, you will notice that the sand is not all the same colour. There appear to be three colours. Ignoring…
Where the Rocks Aren’t
I spent a very enjoyable Friday evening at the Hornet Services Sailing Club in Gosport. I was there to listen to a talk being jointly…
National Coastwatch Institution
I recently spent an enjoyable and informative couple of hours with the team at the St. Alban’s Head Lookout Station in Dorset, part of the…
National Maritime Operations Centre (NMOC), Fareham
I’m just back from a visit to the fresh National Maritime Operations Centre in Fareham. This is the new national headquarters of HM Coastguard and…
Viking Sunstones
The Economist have just published a letter I wrote to them regarding a recent academic article on Viking sunstones. In the following letter I put…
Over and Out
The expression, ‘Over and Out’, brings a smile to anyone with experience using radios. This expression is never used these days by those with any…