The octopus visited and photographed by Craig Foster was so clever, David Attenborough made her the star of Blue Planet II. Watch the clip linked here!

In the last few months, I’ve been getting my reading mojo back, after possibly too much writing and editing and general brain clutter. Now it’s December, and the Season of Mayhem and Malls is upon us. And yet for many, it’s the one time we can legitimately take a break. I do that by falling into a book. All I want for Christmas is to read and read and read and read. My plan was to do an Advent calendar or Twelve Days of Christmas series of bookish blogs, and while it’s a bit random, I’m going to try to mark this time of year by posting about books — reviews, my favourite book adventures of 2019, my passion for local literature, and more — at least for the holiday duration.

Let’s kick off with what looks like a coffee-table book: huge, hefty, with glorious colour photos. But it’s much more than a decorative object. I’m talking about Sea Change, by Craig Foster and Ross Frylinck, which I won this past year in exchange for an HONEST review for that wonderful secret Facebook group, the Good Book Appreciation Society. The subtitle (Primal Joy and the Art of Underwater Tracking) gave me pause; it sounded a bit lofty for a book on the kelp forests of the Cape Peninsula — but it makes perfect sense once you read the book, which I did in a single sitting, although I will be going back to marvel over the photographs, especially the double-page spreads. 

It's a BEAUTIFUL book in every way, but not in the pretty way of the usual coffee-table book — the images are often eerie and trippy. In fact, the whole book is a trip, and that makes sense, given that something the authors explore is the concept of “wilderness rapture” and “primal joy” — the experience of transcendence brought about by immersion in nature and deep recognition of our place in it as one more (lethal and horrendously destructive) creature in a awe-garnering web of life. Craig Foster and his brother Damon, the film-makers, first learned this when making the documentary The Great Dance, about the lives of San people in the Kalahari. (This isn't about middle-class “tourism” on the edges of indigenous post-genocide communities, I hasten to add, but sincere attempts to regain knowledge of lifestyles and perceptions the loss of which threaten the entire planet — and therefore ourselves.) But this isn’t one of those environmental books that hammers out grim truths either. This book made me feel strangely comforted on an increasingly apocalyptic planet, because (just as the authors plunge into the icy waters of the Atlantic in mid-winter) this book plunges the reader into wonder, a place of deep magic that is sometimes shocking. Craig’s photos suggest Tolkien underwater on speed. The richness of what is under our noses, the delicacy, complexity, brutality and brilliance of all those species balanced in the kelp fields we see as we drive around the Cape shorelines: these evoke awe and amazement. 

Nudibranch known as blue dragon or sea swallow. (Pic from book, photographer Craig Foster.)

As a poet, I fell in love with the names of these nearby neighbours of whose existence I was mostly unaware: pyjama catshark, pleated toadfish, false plum anemone, heart urchin, granite limpet (factoid: the teeth in its tongue are made from the hardest known biological substance on earth). The photos show these and many other creatures killing, eating, mating, spawning, playing, sleeping and in some cases, physically interacting with Craig as he drifted quietly in their world. Some of these are incredibly moving: look out for the octopus, otter and whale ear pics.

The text is interestingly presented, and it took me a little while to get used to the two different voices: surfer Ross Frylinck tells the story of his friendship with Craig, but it's also a short and honest memoir of his relationship with a father lost, found, lost again, and his own son. At the same time, the lengthy and fascinating captions are written by Craig himself, who lacks Ross’s scepticism and is wholeheartedly engaged with the world underwater. It makes for an interesting double perspective, especially as Ross, for much of the tale, clearly considers Craig to be bat-scat-crazy (a view I found myself sharing at times). 

I’m intrigued by the impact of very cold water on human physiology, with implications not just for our physical, but mental health. So I was riveted by the accounts of what regular ocean diving sans wetsuits did to Ross and Craig’s minds and bodies (and those of their children). I wish there had been more information about the hormonal surges post-immersion that can create trance states very similar to those described by researchers investigating psychotropic drugs as a new frontline against depression and other mental illnesses. But maybe that’s a topic for another book: the goal here is to open the eyes of our eyes (in the words of the poet e. e. cummings).

The book is part of a broader project that links research, exploration, conservation, documentary films and educational outreach, and it had me galloping to the internet to find out more. Visit their website, one of the loveliest and linky-est I’ve seen. Given that the book is an enormous full-colour hardcover creation (it weighs 2.3 kgs), with exquisite production values (Quivertree, the publishers, are unfailingly excellent in this regard), I expected it to cost well over four figures, but it costs only R850. NOT cheap, but for a special occasion or even a last-minute Christmas gift for someone you really love, it’s a bargain. You can also get the e-book for R375.

I'm impressed at the wide reach the book has. It’s important to academics and conservationists (it is comforting in an age of mass extinctions, a daily ongoing carnage, to learn that Craig keeps finding undiscovered species in the waters only a stone's throw from a major city — he also records previously unobserved fishy behaviours that bring the marine biologists and scientists running). It will appeal to all greenies, hippies, visionaries and artists (I say this as someone who is all of these things, as well as a bit bat-scat-crazy myself). It makes an extremely NB but also encouraging contribution to environmental literature and record-keeping at a time when much of this material is so bleak as to induce despair. And it’s a wonderful book for anyone who surfs, kayaks, swims, sails, dives or just generally loves to wander along our beaches and look into rock pools.

Holiday cheer quotient: high, because this is a book about the real magic right next door.

I’ve left Craig’s caption intact, although it’s hard to read (my fault), to give a sense of the love and wonder with which he writes about the denizens of this world alongside us.