This is a blend of literature and science which explores the seas that cover seven-tenths of the earth's surface, combining a description of the sea and its boundaries in our imaginations and an appreciation of its mysteries. These include special places such as reefs and lagoons and strange phenomena such as islands that never existed and yet appear on maps. The author takes the reader into the deeps and into the cold fear of drowning, into the marvels of marine life and the sombre zone of the wreck. The high technology of an ocean survey ship opens up a strange history of ocean maps and names, and a bleak North Sea trawler takes us into water we are trying to turn into a desert. James Hamilton-Paterson is the author of "The Bell-Boy", "Gerontius", "That Time in Malomba", "Playing With Water" and "The View from Mount Dog".