A child is paddling at the edge of the waves on a rocky shore.🌊🐚 Crabs, starfish, sea anemones, shells and a small octopus are tucked in among the rocks, with a lighthouse away on the point. There is a great deal here for a child to hunt out and color — and searching the rock pools of a summer shore, isoasobi, is one of the small pleasures of a Japanese summer holiday.
Something like 240,000 marine species have been described and named so far — fish, jellyfish, crabs, shrimp, starfish, octopus, squid, whales, sharks, and a great many things smaller than a fingernail. Researchers expect the true number to be far higher: new species are still being described every year, and the deep sea floor remains thinly explored. It makes a good question to leave open with a child while they color.
What makes waves?
Most waves are made by wind blowing across the surface of the sea. The wind’s energy passes into the water and travels onward as a swell, which can keep rolling long after the wind that raised it has died away — which is why the sea is rarely still even on a calm day. In a large storm, waves well over ten metres are recorded. A tsunami is a different thing altogether, set off by an earthquake or a landslide rather than by wind, and the English word for it is borrowed straight from Japanese.
