If you had to swim through hell seven times, wouldn't you try to get it done quickly? Attila Mányoki made it his life's mission to complete the Oceans Seven - and break the world record while doing so. This crowning jewel of marathon swimming comprises seven of the most dangerous channels in the world, tormenting swimmers who dare to cross them with freezing water, deadly wildlife, and massive waves. In this book, Mányoki takes you on his journey from his beginnings as a short kid with asthma through decades of painful struggles and unlikely successes, all the way to a night spent on life support. He relives the day a Greek stranger gave him the most valuable of life lessons, explains his secrets to enduring excruciating pain and opens up on how he faced the sea that had almost killed him for one final showdown.

Looks at seven natural wonders, including the Bay of Fundy, the Great Barrier Reef, and the Mariana Trench.

Relates the story of the oceans that are home to so many creatures, that are part of the water cycle which produces rain, and that can become very messy if we do not take care of them.

Islands, Oceans and Dreams is a true story of a man who, at the age of thirty-three, began dreaming of voyaging with his wife to the South Pacific. He wasn't an adventurer or daring by nature, but he bought a boat and began learning the ways of the sea. Twenty years later, racked with the pain of divorce, and still aching to live out his dream, he set off alone for Tahiti. After reaching French Polynesia, he continued cruising for seven years and wound up solo sailing around the world. Islands, Oceans and Dreams takes the reader on that voyage. From turquoise lagoons to pirates and plenty of adventure in between, this is a must read for any sailor or arm chair traveler who loves stories of the sea. --From publisher's website.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A riveting, adrenaline-fueled tour of a vast, lawless, and rampantly criminal world that few have ever seen: the high seas. There are few remaining frontiers on our planet. But perhaps the wildest, and least understood, are the world's oceans: too big to police, and under no clear international authority, these immense regions of treacherous water play host to rampant criminality and exploitation. Traffickers and smugglers, pirates and mercenaries, wreck thieves and repo men, vigilante conservationists and elusive poachers, seabound abortion providers, clandestine oil-dumpers, shackled slaves and cast-adrift stowaways—drawing on five years of perilous and intrepid reporting, often hundreds of miles from shore, Ian Urbina introduces us to the inhabitants of this hidden world. Through their stories of astonishing courage and brutality, survival and tragedy, he uncovers a globe-spanning network of crime and exploitation that emanates from the fishing, oil, and shipping industries, and on which the world's economies rely. Both a gripping adventure story and a stunning exposé, this unique work of reportage brings fully into view for the first time the disturbing reality of a floating world that connects us all, a place where anyone can do anything because no one is watching.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Christine Feehan tells the story of Abigail Drake, one of seven elementally gifted sisters who are fated to find great love. As the third daughter in a magical bloodline, Abigail Drake was born with a mystical affinity for water, and possessed a particularly strong bond with dolphins. She spent her entire life studying them, learning from them, and swimming among them in the waters off her hometown of Sea Haven... Until the day Abby witnessed a cold-blooded murder on shore, and found herself fleeing for her life—right into the arms of Alexsandr Volstov. He’s an Interpol agent on the trail of stolen Russian antiquities, a relentless man who gets what he goes after—and the man who broke Abby’s heart. But he isn’t going to let the only woman he ever loved be placed in harm’s way—or slip away from his embrace.

The ocean is an endless wonder that has shaped the progress of civilization for all of human history. Thousands of years ago, the sea retreated and exposed more than 2 million acres of dry land, enabling early man to migrate from Asia and eventually settle North and South America. Centuries later, explorers such as Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan braved the waters as they searched for shorter ocean routes to new worlds. When, in 1800, all surface areas of the ocean had been explored, scientists turned their gaze to the deepest recesses of the sea, discovering thousands of species of plants and animals there. The sea remains our planet's largest source of food, fuel, and energy, holding the very key to life for sea creatures and people alike.

Most people know Ted Danson as the affable bartender Sam Malone in the long-running television series Cheers. But fewer realize that over the course of the past two and a half decades, Danson has tirelessly devoted himself to the cause of heading off a looming global catastrophe—the massive destruction of our planet's oceanic biosystems and the complete collapse of the world's major commercial fisheries. In Oceana, Danson details his journey from joining a modest local protest in the mid-1980s to oppose offshore oil drilling near his Southern California neighborhood to his current status as one of the world's most influential oceanic environmental activists, testifying before congressional committees in Washington, D.C.; addressing the World Trade Organization in Zurich, Switzerland; and helping found Oceana, the largest organization in the world focused solely on ocean conservation. In his incisive, conversational voice, Danson describes what has happened to our oceans in just the past half-century, ranging from the ravages of overfishing and habitat destruction to the devastating effects of ocean acidification and the wasteful horrors of fish farms. Danson also shares the stage of Oceana with some of the world's most respected authorities in the fields of marine science, commercial fishing, and environmental law, as well as with other influential activists. Combining vivid, personal prose with an array of stunning graphics, charts, and photographs, Ocean powerfully illustrates the impending crises and offers solutions that may allow us to avert them, showing you the specific courses of action you can take to become active, responsible stewards of our planet's most precious resource—its oceans.

Adam Walker is not your everyday record-breaking sportsman. He took on arguably the toughest extreme sport on the planet – to swim non-stop across seven of the world’s deadliest oceans wearing only swim trunks, cap and goggles. It is not a test for the faint-hearted. In 2007, Adam, then a toaster salesman, was inspired by a film about a man attempting to change his life by swimming the English Channel to try to emulate the feat. After a year of rigorous training without a coach, Adam achieved his goal in 11 hours 35 minutes, despite a ruptured bicep tendon leading to medical advice to give up long-distance swimming. In 2011, after two operations and a change to his swimming style to take pressure off his injured shoulder, he became the first Briton to achieve a two-way crossing from Spain to Morocco and back. In the process, he broke the British record one way. Shortly afterwards, the Ocean’s Seven challenge was born, a gruelling equivalent to the Seven Summits mountaineering challenge. At first it seemed that injury would prevent Adam from participating but, ignoring medical advice, he developed an innovative technique – the Ocean Walker stroke – that would enable him to continue with the ultimate aim of completing this seemingly impossible feat. Whether man would triumph over ocean, or fail in the attempt, forms the core of this extraordinary autobiography. Always intriguing, sometimes terrifying, and occasionally very funny, Adam’s story is about sport in its truest form: rather than competitions between teams and individuals, it is about man against nature – and against his own failings and demons. In that, it is truly inspirational.