The Wave : : in Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean

Locations
Call Number: 551.463 Ca, Adult Book / Nonfiction / Science & Nature / Earth Sciences / Casey, Susan
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Malletts Creek Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	551.463 Ca	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Science & Nature / Earth Sciences / Casey, Susan	4-week checkout	On Shelf

The grand empress -- Broken skulls -- Schrodinger's wave -- Karma, tiger sharks, and the golden carrot -- Wave good-bye -- Mavericks -- "I never saw anything like it" -- Killers -- Heavy weather -- Egypt -- Out, way out, on the Cortes bank -- The wild coast -- At the edge of the horizon.
Investigates colossal ship-swallowing rogue waves and the surfers who seek them out. For centuries, mariners have spun tales of gargantuan waves, 100 feet high or taller. Until recently scientists dismissed these stories; waves that high would seem to violate the laws of physics. But in the past few decades, as a number of ships have vanished and new evidence has emerged, oceanographers realized something was brewing in the planet's waters. They found their proof in February 2000, when a British research vessel was trapped in a vortex of impossibly mammoth waves in the North Sea, including several approaching 100 feet. Scientists scramble to understand this phenomenon. Yet extreme surfers fly around the world trying to ride the ocean's ultimate challenges. The sport's pioneer, Laird Hamilton, with a group of friends in Hawaii, figured out how to board waves of 70 and 80 feet. The exploits of Hamilton and his fellow surfers are juxtaposed against scientists' urgent efforts to understand the destructive powers of waves, from the tsunami that wiped out 250,000 people in the Pacific in 2004 to the 1,740 foot wave that recently leveled part of the Alaskan coast. The book portrays human beings confronting nature at its most ferocious. -- Publisher info.

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

An Oceanic Adventure submitted by MariaK on December 23, 2010, 3:16pm Growing up in New Mexico, I never really got to experience the power and grandeur of the ocean first-hand, but this book really lets me know what I've been missing. This book focuses on the largest waves in the world, and a crew of scientists and athletes whose goal in life is to understand -- and surf -- those monstrous waves. This is a story of nature at its fiercest. If you like "The Proving Ground" and "Into Thin Air," this is the book you've been waiting for.