Water and Light
Categories: Sports , Travel , Outdoors & Nature
I don't know why, but as far back as I can remember I've had a passion for scuba diving. There's something about entering a completely different environment surrounded by a strangely organic and colorful world that is just mind-bending. In Stephen Harrigan's book Water and Light: A Diver's Journey To a Coral Reef, he asks the question about his own passion for diving and where it originates. In an attempt to answer this question, he sets out to spend several months diving off Grand Turk Island. He explores the quiet, exquisite, and powerful beauty of coral reefs along dozens of sites around the island.
Harrigan contrasts the lively friendships he strikes up with locals on the island to the solitude he finds floating in near gravity-free suspension along enormous reef walls. The author brings the reader along with him several times throughout the book to his favorite coral reef site called 'Harmonium Point'. Here you get to see and visit (in a vicarious way obviously) the almost overwhelming surge of aquatic life among high ridges and absymally deep dropoffs. The real strength of the book is the author's descriptive powers. You get the same sense of keen observation whether he's relating a midday stroll through Cockburn Town or describing the vibrant colors and textures of a coral formation. Because of the extensive amount of time Harrigan spent on Grand Turk, his familiarity and descriptions of destinations around the island make them come to life. In that sense, the book acts as an informal travel guide of sorts. But primarily, this is just a great read on what the experience of diving is really like.
If you're interested in another title that contains many great stories on diving, check out Down Time: Great Writers on Diving. This book contains over 35 stories, fiction and nonfiction, from authors like Michael Crichton, Dave Barry, Peter Benchley, Robert Stone and many others.
One novel in which diving is a central theme (there doesn't seem to be many like this) is Go to the Widow-Maker by James Jones. This is easily the best work of fiction I've found on the subject. It was written in the 1960s, so the technical aspects of the story are a little dated but the general prose about the experience itself is perfect. I highly recommend it if you have any interest in scuba diving.
