The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean by Susan Casey

The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Oceanby Susan Casey, Waves and Oceans, 326 pages.
I am declaring this my favorite work of nonfiction for 2010. It is going on my staff picks. Packed full of stormy seas with hundred-foot waves, seas so rough with waves so high that giant container ships are routinely disappearing in them, going under every week, and then of course there are the surfers trying to ride these same waves. Casey does an excellent job introducing us to the people tow-surfing these giant waves, the problem of shipping in dangerous seas, and the maddeningly complex science of giant waves. Tow-surfing, it turns out, is when a jet ski is needed to deposit a surfer on a wave that is too large and is moving too fast for the surfer to paddle to. The surfer often needs to be quickly extricated as well, before the next giant wave takes him to the bottom and holds him there, or dashes and crashes him on the rocks. So the jet ski becomes the rescue ski and has to pull the surfer out before both surfer and skier die. It all sounds a little crazy, and since I have heard almost nothing about any of this before, I'm going to be pissed if it turns out that this was all made up and Susan Casey is really James Frey.
Casey wrote an even-handed, informative and fun-to-read book.
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