And you can't help but worry for them, love them, want for them - those who go on down the close, foetid galleries of time and space without you.

I don't believe there's anything cosmic or divine or morally superior about whales and dolphins or sharks or trees, but I do think that everything that lives is holy and somehow integrated; and on cloudy days I suspect that these extraordinary phenomena, and the hundreds of tiny, modest versions no one hears about, are an ocean, an earth, a Creator, something shaking us by the collar, demanding our attention, our fear, our vigilance, our respect, our help.

I came home at dusk with my ears ringing from the quiet.

Yet however comforting and peaceful beach-combing is, it ends up like the sea, as disturbing as it is reassuring. In dark moments I believe that walking on a beach at low tide is to be looking for death, or at least anticipating it. You will only find the dead, the spilled and the cast-off. Things torn free of their life or their place.

Who wants to be reputable? That's for golfers and tycoons with a sleazy past.

A problem not so well understood is the growing presence of plastics in the marine food chain. If we don't make big changes fast, the fish we do save may no longer be safe to eat.

I eat green ants often enough. They are wonderful. The trick is to squash them before you eat them, otherwise they bite your tongue and it ruins the experience.