In Move Like Water: A Story of the Sea and its Creatures, Hannah Stowe takes the reader on a meditative, personal journey through her childhood, teenage years and into adulthood, during which she roams from the Pembrokeshire shores of her homeland to the Azores, Tunisia and beyond. Key events, relationships, traumas and joys are viewed through the prism of seawater and its diverse inhabitants, which provide titles for the book's chapters, ranging from the soaring albatross to deep diving sperm whales and the understated, clinging barnacle. Stowe has written a beautifully constructed—if at times slightly inconsistent—memoir, interspersing her own experiences with ecological, social and historical curiosities about ocean wildlife, the myriad threats it faces, and the urgent need for its conservation.
This book is not a page-turner, compelling the reader to rush through in one sitting (or sailing?). Stowe's evocative, highly descriptive prose is better consumed in a slower fashion, so that her vivid, heartfelt style can be appreciated. Dramatic ocean-going moments are conjured up, and Stowe's narrative is at its strongest when painting pictures of starlit, wave-tossed nights on the deck of her sailboat, or of a thrilling encounter with a breaching humpback whale. She also delicately weaves her personal story into anecdotes about the lives of marine animals, creating genuinely moving moments—for instance in the Sperm Whale chapter, which starts with childhood searches for ambergris on the beach, before exploring the fascinating matrilineal structure of sperm whale family groups, and tying this back to the nurturing and inspiration that she derived from her own grandmother and mother.
Stowe is also candid about the mental and physical health struggles that have prematurely dogged her life. A violent fall from a surfboard results in a crippling back injury, which is followed by addiction to powerful painkillers, and a near-complete loss of independence, leaving her future as a sailor and marine conservationist in major doubt. Stowe's description of these agonies and her stubborn perseverance in overcoming them and returning to the sea is painful and moving to witness.
There are moments in Move Like Water when the richly descriptive prose becomes perhaps too weighty, which to some readers may feel like a loss of momentum—although this could equally be treated as an opportunity to slow down, pause and reflect, rather than rush onwards. Certain sections switch abruptly between such vivid language and a more didactic, informative style that Stowe adopts to explain an ecological or environmental point related to one of her focal species. At times these differing tones feel like sudden changes of tack rather than seamless transitions, and the textbook-like sections seem comparatively bland alongside the luxurious tracts of descriptive writing. In this regard, perhaps Stowe has tried to do too much with some of her ocean-dwelling characters, unable to achieve the same richness and depth in her discussions of ecology and conservation as she does in her flowing best elsewhere. Thus, although Move Like Water has many triumphant and touching moments, these peaks are not evenly sustained.
Nonetheless, this book is undoubtedly ‘an ocean to hold in your hands’ as the author puts it (p. 230), and is to be recommended for anyone with an appreciation of skilfully crafted nature writing and for those who love being on, beside or beneath the sea. Stowe leaves the reader with newfound wonder at familiar and unfamiliar marine creatures, taking us through her own euphoric highs and crushing lows along the way, and calling fervently for action to undo the damage we have inflicted on the ocean and its wildlife. As the book draws to a close, the final companion creature is the aforementioned barnacle, and Stowe concludes back in her native Pembrokeshire, heartachingly once again confined to land through a recurrence of her back injury. Nonetheless, she remains determined to pursue a life dedicated to studying and writing about the ocean. Given this appears to be Stowe's first book, there is doubtless more beautiful and evocative nature writing to look forward to.
Open access
