Where does it all come from? From tennis shoes, gold doubloons, and rubber ducks to ambergris, seedpods, and dead whales, the ocean gives up many curious prizes. In Washed Up, author Skye Moody walks the coast, dons her wet suit, and heads out to sea to understand the mysterious debris that accrues along the tide line. She finds advanced military technology applied to locating buried Rolexes, hardcore competitive beachcombing conventions, isolated beach communities, and learns about the Pacific Garbage Patch, a 200-mile swirl of current that holds everything from car parts to basketballs to kilos of heroin. Like the best walks down the beach, Washed Up pauses for shiny objects and colorful people and gives inspiration to both budding and seasoned treasure hunters.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 5 reviews)

Interesting tidbits, but terrible execution

I've read amusing tales of flotsam before, such as the rubber ducks that spilled into the sea and were used to track currents, so I picked up this book.

I must say, I found it tremendously frustrating to read. Ms. Moody's writing style in this book is irksome at best, juvenile at worst. She employs phrases like "hella-bad ugly" and uses bizarre interludes with a (presumably imaginary) psychiatrist, and I found none of this enjoyable.

Further, the book lacked any sort of organization. The major sections are stretched to their limits (and beyond), such that they become meaningless. Each section then has shorter sub-sections, but these too seem to be scattered. Repeatedly, I found myself reading a tidbit and feeling it had been cut very short. I'd finish a paragraph, and expect to read on and get more information, but instead an entirely different topic would come up. I don't think I've ever failed to finish a book I've started, but I was sorely tempted with this one.

If you're a die-hard beachcomber, perhaps this book is worthwhile. Otherwise, I'd absolutely advise steering clear.
April 12, 2008

Beachcombing

The author has travelled all over the world and beachcombed. She uses humor to teach us about ocean currents that take items from say Japan to the Washington state coast. I was expecting a book about beachcombing, another quick read about glass floats and driftwood. But this book is so much more than that. Skye explains currents. She explains about sperm whales that regurgitate a product that can be found on some beaches, then warns us about buying this products on the internet. (It's illegal in the states to purchase products from sperm whales because they are an endangered species.)
She also writes about the problem of dumping wastes in our oceans, and how that affects the food chain.
All of this is done in a highly readable writing style, laced with a sharp humor. Weaving through the book is a tale about an item she found at Alkai Beach in Seattle, but she discarded thinking she couldn't possibly carry one more item. She regrets having tossed it.
I'm glad I purchased and read this book. Now, I must go...beachcombing!
February 01, 2007

Gifts and Lessons from the Sea

Skye Moody has been a journalist covering Ukrainian coal mining and Siberian reindeer herding, a bush guide in East Africa, a literature teacher, a poet, and a novelist. She has also written nonfiction books before, but has now written one about a subject in which what she is really interested. Moody is a flotsamist, which is a fancy way of saying she is a beachcomber. In _Washed Up: The Curious Journeys of Flotsam and Jetsam_ (Sasquatch Books), she has described her passion with all the enthusiasm of the most devoted hobbyist. There's always a danger that someone writing about a hobby will be unable to communicate the hobby's fascination to those who don't share the passion, but there is no such problem in Moody's book. For one thing, the subject is inherently fascinating; no one who has ever walked on a beach has failed to pay attention to shells, driftwood, seaweed, or bottles that have washed up on the sand. For another, Moody is a funny writer, amused by her own obsession and by those who share it. For yet another, studying what travels around the ocean can be scientific evidence of how currents work, so tracking flotsam is not a trivial folly.

In 1990, Nike shoes began washing up on the beaches of the Pacific northwest. Six months before, a huge container ship had lost twenty-one shipping containers in a severe storm, including five containers holding 80,000 Nike shoes. This was bad news for Nike, but good news for oceanographers who could track the shoes and improve their models of ocean currents. The flotsamists who collected the shoes realized that there were few matches; the laces of the shoes had not been tied together, so shortly after being dunked, the right shoes parted ways from the left shoes. The parting was not random. The slight change in curvature between left and right shoes caused the righties to follow the northward Alaska current and show up around Queen Charlotte Sound, while the lefties tended to follow the southward California current and wound up in Oregon. The most romantic of all flotsam is the message in a bottle; even if you have never found one, you know how eager you would be to open a washed-up bottle containing a message. Some bottles are literally vectors of romance. In 1956, a Swedish sailor jettisoned a bottled note overboard, asking for a reply from any pretty girl who found it. A Sicilian fisherman eventually found the bottle, and gave it to his daughter as a joke. Some joke: two years later, the couple were married.

The saga of flotsam isn't all trivial fun. There are important issues mentioned here having to do with the modern ways we use the seas. Loose cargo used not to be a big problem; below decks, it only went down if the ship went down. Modern container ships, however, stow many of their big boxes in the open, where they are liable to be washed over in a storm. The boxes can float at least temporarily, and are a significant traffic hazard on the sea, especially at night. The other great problem is that most flotsam is not a curious message in a bottle or a pretty glass float. Most flotsam is garbage, and just as seaweed accumulates in the Sargasso Sea, garbage accumulates in what are now called "garbage patches". The name is official enough that even the North Pacific's Great Garbage Patch has two components, the Eastern and the Western Garbage Patches, each with tons of garbage. The floating garbage displaces plankton, and since it is mostly plastic, it stays and stays until it eventually degrades into nasty stuff that poisons the creatures that eat it. Some of the garbage skims off at times, and hits the beaches, where flotsamists might welcome it while bemoaning it. This cannot go on forever, but looking for the novelties from the sea will go on as long as the seas roll. Moody's is not a downbeat book, however; it is jovial and light, and covers a subject of irresistible interest.

January 19, 2007

Stories from time and space

This is a book for filling your head with amazing facts to regurgitate when walking on the beach with friends or children. I can attest to the latter's fascination with tales of astronaut poop, and the origins of ambergris, the fragrant sea-borne product of whale regurgitation.

The book collects together stories from across the globe and over the centuries, in styles reminiscent of People Magazine (with photographs), Tattler and National Geographic. Moody has a journalist's eye for detail, and a storyteller's ability to inject dry facts with human interest. Her name-dropping is both cheeky and fun. She covers whimsical topics (floating phalluses) and serious ones (the proliferation of plastic garbage in the tidal gyres of the Pacific), but it's a quick read, ideal for say, a flight to Melanesia (home of the cargo cultists).

The book could do with an index, to allow the reader to locate and re-read some of the more interesting tales. And, there was an unfortunate bobble in the explanation of why driftwood floats. But neither criticism detracts from what is an entertaining and informative read. I recommend it.

October 17, 2006

For beachcombers and all lovers of the sea

"Washed Up" is a beautifully written collage about the tangled, tide-driven world of flotsam and jetsam. Reminiscent of Kurlanski's "History of Salt," the book is well-researched--chock full of history, science, flotsamist characters, and legends of the sea. Sometimes exotic, sometimes quirky, sometimes amazing, "Washed Up" is a marvelous voyage. Author Skye Moody clearly loves the sea, adding her own flotsamist obsessions to carry the reader on a tour both informative and funny. By the time I was done, I understood terms like lagan, wrack, spermacetti, and gyre, but even more, I felt so much the richer and wiser about our indelible human impact on Earth's oceans.
September 23, 2006

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

Tracking Trash: Flotsam, Jetsam, and the Science of Ocean Motion (Scientists in the Field)
by Loree Griffin Burns

Flotsam (Caldecott Medal Book)
by David Wiesner

Beachcombing the Pacific
by Amos L. Wood

Pure Sea Glass: Discovering Nature's Vanishing Gems
by Richard LaMotte, Sally Lamotte Crane
by Celia Pearson

Beach Stones
by Josie Iselin, Margaret Carruthers