Who isn’t made blissful sitting at water’s edge, staring at the horizon, hypnotized by that delicate, nearly imperceptible yet somehow distinct line where blue meets blue? Who among us doesn’t count those solitary, sun-washed moments—whether afloat on a boat or feet dug deep into the sand—as among the favorites of a lifetime? Cliché? Perhaps. But if the views off land’s edges are not the most soothing, the most renewing on the planet, why do so many of us flock there to live, to work, to rejuvenate? Which raises the issue of why we call this Planet Earth when 71 percent of it is ocean. That this is not.
