Discovering the stories behind beach debris

"Strand: An Odyssey

of Pacific Ocean Debris"

by Bonnie Henderson

Oregon State University Press,

216 pp., $18.95

How many times have you strolled down a beach and come across some strange object, or even a commonplace one, and wondered what it was or where it came from?

If only you had the time and determination to ferret out the story of your find — what exotic tales would it tell? Such questions also piqued Oregon writer and naturalist Bonnie Henderson, and fortunately she did have both time and energy to find the answers. She relates her stories in the wonderfully written and always fascinating "Strand: An Odyssey of Pacific Ocean Debris."

Over the past half decade or so, Henderson walked a nondescript, one-mile-long stretch of Oregon coastline as part of a volunteer project called CoastWatch. Four times a year she would go out to mile 157, as she labeled her spot 25 miles north of Coos Bay, to keep an eye on what was happening on the beach.

Strand focuses on six items she found: a glass float, a dead common murre, a Reebok shoe, a beached minke whale, a burned and wrecked boat and a skate egg case.

Each chapter begins with Henderson's description of her discovery. And then she's off — to China to visit the industrial plant that makes Reebok running shoes, to the San Juan Islands in search of live minke whales or to Japan to find the third-generation owner of the factory that helped popularize glass fishing floats in 1910.

Along the way we learn about shark evolution, that hockey gloves float faster than running shoes and why Japanese fisherman preferred glass floats the color of the sea. One very gripping chapter describes how the boat wreck Henderson found ended up on the beach.

Combining dogged perseverance, impressive research and an attention to detail, Henderson has written a first-rate book about the beach and the stories of debris. It will make you want to go to the beach and find your own stories.