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How do crabs understand the tides? What does a prawn know? How do sandhoppers inherit an inbuilt compass from their parents? How can the depth of one winkle guarantee the lives of its companions? Nicholson explores the natural wonders of the intertidal and our long human relationship with it. The physics of the seas, the biology of anemone and limpet, the long history of the Earth, and the stories we tell of those who have lived here all interconnecting this zone where philosopher, scientist and poet can meet and find meaning. What do our buried beliefs about the tidal sea reflect about our relationship to nature? The sea is not made of water. Creatures are its genes. Look down as you crouch over the shallows and you will find a periwinkle or a prawn, a claw-displaying crab or a cluster of anemones ready to meet you. We have all fallen in love with the seaside and the rockpool became the heart of a kind of nature worship, 'these unruffled wells' of goodness and even happiness and we have inherited some of that Victorian longing for calm. In this world of flux 'hermit crabs are suddenly busy on the sea floor in their winkles and whelks like porters with trolleys at a station... some of those shells are encrusted with patches of the limy, self-hardening seaweed, the pink coralline. One has a sprig of wrack growing from its shell.' 'Effortlessly, in deft, sure and delightful prose, he segues through species, science and art to present tidal nature as a microcosm.' - Philip Hoare. There is a section of colour photographs, plus black and white images, diagrams, and figures and maps and also a fascinating look at planetary connections, tides and rocks, sacrifice, survival, belief and a look to the future and the world's uncertainty, its fierce interfolding of opportunity and threat which makes the sea one of the most revelatory and beguiling habitats on earth. Look beyond your own reflection in this wonderful historian's philosophy that the sea is not made of water. 370pp.