Skye Kathleen Moody

A little disappointing. I buy a lot of books sight unseen, based on online descriptions; sometimes I get what I was expecting, sometimes I get something else which may still be interesting. Or not. In this case I was expecting something fairly technical – a discussion of ocean currents and beach dynamics. Instead, I got a book of anecdotes from a compulsive beachcomber. To boot, many of the anecdotes are personal – author Skye Moody picks up a random pretty rock at the beach, turns it over, and finds a human face drawn on the other side. Far out, cool and groovy.

A few are fairly interesting – for example, slabs of beeswax have been washing up along the Oregon coast since the 1890s. From where? The suggestion is a long-lost Spanish galleon carrying beeswax from the Far East, and Moody provides a list of missing galleons. Unfortunately, Moody takes fellow beachcombers claims at face value – supposedly one had a beeswax slab carbon dated to 1691. Anyone familiar with carbon dating should have been able to clue her in on the various ways that could be wrong. Of course there’s the obligatory mention of the exploding whale, the prefabricated house picked up by a lucky Alaskan, the Nike shoes – all left feet, etc. (I’ve seen something similar from the Ordovician – a slab of rock covered with bivalve fossils – but only the left valves. Or maybe it was only the right valves; don’t remember).

Not worth buying unless it’s in the $1 remainder bin, but might make an amusing couple of hours reading if picked up at the library.… (meer)