Water Explorations

Sailing to Newfoundland documents a solo journey on a 40' sailboat from Florida to the remote and uninhabited fjords of the south coast of Newfoundland, one of the few places in the world where raw, unspoiled nature meets the ocean and provides sheltered anchorages. From the author of Becoming a Sailor, Journey to the Ragged Islands, and Chasing the Nomadic Dream, this book puts you in the cockpit, and in the fjords, and on top of glacier-cut mountains in the remote backcountry of Newfoundland.

When Tara Roberts first caught sight of a photograph at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History depicting the underwater archaeology group Diving With a Purpose, it called out to her. Here were Black women and men strapping on masks, fins, and tanks to explore Atlantic Ocean waters along the coastlines of Africa, North America, and Central America, seeking the wrecks of slave ships long lost in time. Inspired, Roberts joined them—and started on a path of discovery more challenging and personal than she could ever have imagined.

Dorian Hawke's daily routine was pretty straightforward. Wake up, pull his weight around the village, eat potatoes, go to bed. Not too shabby. Not very interesting, maybe, but it was honest work. Then a boat falls like a meteor from the sky. Next thing he knows, a gorgeous elf and stunning faun tell him that magical blood runs through his veins, and they need him to navigate their ship through space.

In a memoir remarkable for its quiet confidence and acute natural observation, the author of Paddling Hawaii and Paddling My Own Canoe begins with her decision, at age 60, to undertake a solo, summer-long voyage along the southeast coast of Alaska in an inflatable kayak. Paddling North is a compilation of Sutherland's first two (of more than 20) such annual trips and her day-by-day travels through the Inside Passage from Ketchikan to Skagway. In 22 years, she encountered more than 30 bears, four wolves, and hundreds of whales.

What’s in a cloud? Did you know that water vapor is invisible and actually lighter than dry air? What separates a tropical storm from a winter blizzard? And what exactly is El Niño? Elliot Rappaport, a professional captain of traditional sailing ships, has spent three decades at sea, where understanding weather is crucial to the safety of vessels and their crews. In Reading the Glass, he offers a sailor’s-eye view of the moving parts of our atmosphere and unveils the larger patterns it holds: global winds, storms, air masses, jet streams, and the longer arc of our climate.

Leaving her garden to the mercy of the slugs, award-winning writer Alys Fowler set out in an inflatable kayak to explore Birmingham's canal network, full of little-used waterways where huge pike skulk and kingfishers dart. Her book is about noticing the wild everywhere and what it means to see beauty where you least expect it. What happens when someone who has learned to observe her external world in such detail decides to examine her internal world with the same care?

In 1958, while flying from one island to another, Audrey Sutherland sees the remote and roadless northeast side of Molokai, with its spectacular sea cliffs and waterfalls. Always an adventurer, she decides that she must find a way to explore this then inaccessible area. After much study, she determines that the best way for her to navigate these treacherous sea walls is to swim while towing an inflatable kayak. This is the story of fulfilling her dream, of planning then implementing, of launching and advancing, of retreating and reconnoitering, of challenge and success.

On a distant planet, xenobiologist Janine Meriwether finds herself haunted by a recurring dream: being dragged to her death by the Nartressan seaweed. Soon, she learns of three others - a traumatized emergency responder, a troubled seafood mogul, and a high-priced escort - who share the same nightmare.

A powerfully built man more than six feet tall, Amundsen’s career of adventure began at the age of fifteen (he was born in Norway in 1872 to a family of merchant sea captains and rich ship owners); twenty-five years later he was the first man to reach both the North and South Poles. Lynne Cox, adventurer and swimmer, author of Swimming to Antarctica (“gripping”—Sports Illustrated) and Grayson (“wondrous, and unforgettable”—Carl Hiaasen), gives us in South with the Sun a full-scale account of the explorer’s life and expeditions.

Award-winning journalist Stephen Petranek says humans will live on Mars by 2027. Now he makes the case that living on Mars is not just plausible, but inevitable. It sounds like science fiction, but Stephen Petranek considers it fact: Within 20 years, humans will live on Mars. We'll need to. In this sweeping, provocative book that mixes business, science, and human reporting, Petranek makes the case that living on Mars is an essential back-up plan for humanity and explains in fascinating detail just how it will happen.

Did you know that women once wore corsets under their bathing suits? Or that "semi-drowning" - the strip and plunge practice - was thought to be good for one's health? Or that Pudgy Stockton, the body-building queen of Muscle Beach, California, opened the country's first gym for women? From the bathhouses of the ancient Greeks to Venice Beach and Coney Island, Let's Go to the Beach takes a multifaceted and well-researched look at beaches and their attendant customs.

Vivi loves science—and experimenting! In this Level 3 I Can Read! title, Vivi volunteers to help with the clean-up efforts at the beach after a big storm hits her town. But why does the beach look so different than before? Vivi and her friends will have to ask a lot of questions, learn about erosion, and conduct experiments to find out!