Big Surf, Deep Dives and the Islands

Rating:
Summary: Mind over reading matter
Review: I recently had the honor of meeting Ricky at a conference on ocean science at the Scripps Instituion of Oceangraphy where I work as a writer and where Grigg was a grad student. Ricky is a true hero; rare these days, and I believe one of the last of the genuine Great Watermen of the '60s. If I could climb inside a book and live there, this might just be it!

Rating:
Summary: Bodacious Geographer Evidences Surfing Savoir-Faire
Review: It's not just that Ricky Grigg (aka Richard Grigg) is a world-renowned expert in the geography, formation, and function of coral reefs. It's that he happens also to be a nearly life-long surfer, and this book is a perfect example of bringing passion to one's practice of geography (and consensual relations; the title is an exquisite double-entendre). There are some wild turns.

It's a beautiful book, and one also consumately energetic. The color plates show someone who has lived in Hawai'i through the modern evolutions of surfing. That he did it as a famed scholar is all the more amazing. This is a better book that Kary Mullis's autobiographical tome (*Dancing Naked in the Mind Field*) -- and were I asked, as a betting man, to wager on who's the better surfer, I'd settle on the esteemed Prof. Grigg in the proverbial New York minute. A majorly fine read.