I read this book because it was an Amazon recommendation, albeit a tepid one. Wow, what a great book! Remember Lynne Cox, the lady who swam to Antarctica? She wrote this book about a long swim off the coast around Catalina. Along the way, she runs into whales, a nice bait salesman, dolphins, life guards, anchovies, sunfish, and offshore oil platforms. There's stuff about gray whales, and where they fit in with other whales. There's stuff about training for long-distance swimming. There's stuff about the power of positive thinking... but not too much, fortunately, since I'm such a cynic. I've liked other things that Cox wrote about the feel of swimming in the ocean--observing the currents, the water, the life. This book pretty much all takes place in the water, and so there's plenty of that. It's a short book. If it were fiction, it would be a novella rather than a novel. It's a quick, fun read; check it out.