Pioneering oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer seized the world's imagination when he and his worldwide network of beachcomber volunteers traced ocean currents using thousands of sneakers and plastic bath toys spilled from storm-tossed freighters. Now, for the first time, Ebbesmeyer tells the story of his lifelong quest to solve the sea's mysteries. He recounts how flotsam has changed the course of history. He reveals the rhythmic and harmonic order in the vast oceanic currents and uncovers the astonishing story of flotsam, altering the world's view of trash, the ocean, and our global environment.

Curtis Ebbesmeyer holds a Ph.D. in-oceanography from the University of Washington. Media worldwide have turned to his expertise on ocean currents and floating objects. He lives in Seattle, Washington. Eric Scigliano, winner of Livingston and AAAS prizes for reporting, has written for Harper's, New Scientist, the New York Times, and many other publications. His books include Puget Sound, Michelangelo's Mountain, and Love, War, and Circuses.

Preface: A New World	p. xiii
Chasing Water	p. 1
The shoe drops and a quest begins
Growing up near the sea but not on it
Chocolate and ducklings, Flotsam and Jetsam
An educational detour
Dance class and lifelong love
Escaping the draft and working for Big Oil
Hearing the oceanographic call
A boost from John D. Rockefeller
A mentor with a holistic approach to the sea
An aquatic snark hunt
Deadheads and Trident subs
Eulerian and Lagrangian viewpoints
Water bodies as granular and dynamic
Dabob Bay as oceanic microcosm
Oil and Icebergs	p. 18
Jim Ingraham creates the Ocean Surface Current Simulator
The UW gang fans out
Mobil Oil's first oceanographer
Conspiring to make Big Oil prepare for big waves
Cliff Barnes's war with icebergs and U-boats
Riders on the icy sea
Life on ice islands
North Sea perils
Goodbye, Dallas; hello, Seattle
Knocking on doors
Sewage grease balls and a devil's staircase
Akira Okubo, master of swarm mathematics
Daredevil drift reading on the Strait of Juan de Fuca
Chasing snarks with the Russians
An ocean full of eddies
Messages in Bottles	p. 45
My father's many illnesses
Our family is reunited in Seattle
Oil bust and near bankruptcy
Chasing the Gulf Stream's frontal eddies
The frustrations of environmental consulting
Low-tech drift sticks on Port Ludlow
The Vikings release the first ocean drifters and find new harbors
Yasuyori's wave-borne verse
The science of determinate drifters and the mystique of message bottles
Edgar Allan Poe, oceanographic seer
Guinness rules the waves
The czar's bottle
Gospel bombs and bottled salvation
I dedicate myself to drifters
Eureka, a Sneaker!	p. 70
The Great Sneaker Spill
Shippers stonewall, but Nike shares its secrets
The joy of beachcombing
OSCURS predicts the sneakers' path
Another spill: beavers, frogs, turtles, and ducks
Ducky mania
OSCURS aces another blind test
The tub toys round the Aleut Gyre
Pacific Pathways comes to Sitka
Oceanic wheels within wheels
An epic freedom drifter
Hockey gloves outrace sneakers
Wind and waves sort left from right
Why nature is two-sided
Coffins, Castaways, and Cadavers	p. 94
Four right feet
The float-away corpse
Ignoring the oil-spill omens
Dad's passing and the Beachcombers' Alert
Isis, Osiris, Moses, and Genghis
Freedom floaters and the Loop Current
Nelson Eddy, strikes. Freedom's price
Floaters and sinkers
Follow the shark
The mystery of Barnacle Bill
The dead don't stay down
I lose my sea legs
The Admiral of the Floating World	p. 118
Far-flung flotsam in the Mediterranean catch basin
Awakening to Columbus
How sea beans conquered the sea
The first flotsamologist
The Azores dumping ground
Messengers from "Cathay"
Invasion of the Finnmen
Reading the waters, not the maps
Phantom islands
Cross Creeks floating archipelago
Columbus's message in a barrel
Borne on a Black Current	p. 138
Ancient volcanic emigrants
The mighty Kuroshio sweeps them away
Asian infusions in America
Castaways from the hermit shogunate
Ranald MacDonald's bold mission to Japan
Wrecked junks at Malarrimo
The American Coastal Pathway
The Great Conveyor	p. 152
Ban beans, brick beads, and buoyant urns
One mystery leads to another
The forgotten gyres, rediscovered and renamed
Amos Wood follows the fishing floats
Buzzy's board rounds the gyre
Tracking water by standing still
Orbital periods
Handoffs between gyres
Wheels within watery wheels
The global conveyor belt
Ashes to Ashes, Life from the Sea	p. 171
Akira and Keiko, apart but inseparable
A young planet covered in floating rock
Pumice as primordial incubator
Akira and I broach our new theory of life's beginnings
Akira's end
A farewell feast
We flush Keiko out to sea
My parents join Akira and Keiko in the Turtle Gyre
Junk Beach and Garbage Patch	p. 186
Growing official and corporate indifference to marine environmental threats
Deaf ears and cold shoulders
Frustration and early retirement
How a garbage patch forms: Hadley cells and reverse hurricanes
Huxley and Mann on Rubber Beach
St. Paul's suffering fur seals
Collector beaches
Hawaiian convergence
How the islanders used the currents
We reach Junk Beach
Cleanups, pileups, and an unending washup
Charlie Moore's war on marine dumping
Turtle beach and plastic sea
The Synthetic Sea	p. 208
Plastic, born in mimicry
Pool balls and piano keys: seeking an ivory substitute
Plastic-packed albatrosses
Molecular mimicry
Endocrine disruptors and feminization
Nurdles sponge up greasy pollutants
Petroleum, plastic, lead, and mercury: which is worse?
Rat poison canisters at the Fun Fair
The Music of the Gyres	p. 222
The gyre orbits add up
Oceanic octaves, a global harmonic series
Melting the Arctic and speeding the gyres
Farewell, fundamental tone
Finding hope
Urban Legends of the Sea	p. 229
A Million Drifting Messages	p. 233
The Oceanic Gyres	p. 235
Ocean Memory	p. 236
Harmonics of the Gyres	p. 238
Acknowledgments	p. 240
Ilustration Credits	p. 242
Glossary	p. 243
Further Reading	p. 247
Index	p. 267
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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