PLEASE NOTE! THERE IS A NEWER EDITION OF THIS BOOK: Water Music, Adventures of a journeyman surfer. THE CONTENT IS ESSENTIALLY THE SAME BUT THERE ARE A FEW CORRECTIONS. THE NEWER EDITION IS RECOMMENDED. If you chase waves over a span of 70 years, you're going to have some adventures. And you're bound to have some insights, even though some of them take years to ripen. I've had my share of adventures, which I've recorded in this book. The insights are there, too. And a little bit of surfing history. This book is really two stories in one. The obvious story includes some wild and crazy stuff. The underlying story is a little deeper: What did all this mean, and how does it carry forward when life isn't quite so wild and crazy anymore? So: come for the action, stick around for the ending. They're both interesting. What was it like to go on a surf safari deep into Mexico sixty years ago? How does it feel to be held down and mauled by a huge, powerful wave? Could a surfer really ride a flash flood twenty-five miles through the Mexican desert in the middle of a hurricane? Can you imagine the thrill of having time literally stand still while you're racing beneath the lip of a big wave in the dim glow of pre-dawn? Want to take a surrealistic trip on an overloaded bus stuffed with hyperkinetic surfers that makes the antics of Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters look like a Cub Scout picnic? How about being at the mercy of cartoonishly inept medical caregivers when the only thing between you and permanent disability is luck and your own sense of humor? How does it feel to make a comeback to surfing at age sixty-two after years out of the water? Get set for surfing, travel and adventure in a time machine with adventures spanning seven decades on four continents and Hawai'i. At the same time, go along on a voyage of personal discovery. The author started surfing in 1951 at the age of ten. At eighty he's still at it - with a new orientation - and finding new magic in stand up paddle surfing.