I'm on a good run of books at the moment fed by the local library http://www.theforumnorwich.co.uk/explore/millennium-library. The latest is Land's Edge - a coastal memoir by Tim Winton (pub Picador). I'm jotting it down so I remember to look out for his name. I was drawn to it because I have a passion for the sea. He talks about whaling and fishing and sharks and diving and all sorts of other things that are unfamiliar to me. His coastline is Australian so I guess that makes a difference. He brings me as close to these things as I am ever likely to get. The language he uses to describe the systematic cutting up a whale, the gruesome dismantling of a great animal is poetic despite the horror. 
I am more of a beachcomber, a beachcomber, passive, receptive, pastoral I guess. I like to gaze, to be, to see, hear, feel, the beach all around me. The sea, the water, is is a different beast really to the land, the beach, that it brushes up upon and I think he has a deeper understanding of the greatness of oceans than I do. 

Here is a quote from the book, I like to drop in a quote to help me recall the writer's voice
"For every moment the sea is peace and relief, there is another when it shivers and stirs to become chaos. It's just as ready to claim as it is to offer"