Mixed with salt water, life's pieces often fit together in ways you don't expect. And there lies the magic. Drawn from a life beside, on and under the sea, these twelve stories tell of a place you know, and places, people and goose-pimpling moments you might not. Young love on summer's shore, wily white sharks, puzzles of horseshoe crab bits, silty boots in viscous deeps, a salty corpse laid twice to rest. Stories of humor and humanity, of enchantment and love, of miracle and mystery and inspiration, of heartbreaking loss and full-throated joy. Once the ocean casts its spell, you never recover. It is the happiest ruin.