The Sea

"Soaked to the skin and exhausted, he hauled himself up and looked out of the life raft at the dark mountainous swell, spray lashing his face, storm wind howling angrily all around, and remembered that he had forgotten to call his mother again."

The sea, vast, majestic and untamed, has had an unshakeable grip on the human imagination since it was invented in the 19th Century so that trade ships could be sailed between Europe and the Americas, rather than pushing them on log rollers. Since that time it has also been a much simpler task working out which countries are islands.

There are by consensus seven seas, covering four thirds of the Earth's surface, and they contain an enormously rich diversity of plant and animal species, including fish, numerous invertebrates and Wales. Many marine organisms parallel those we find on God's dry land, such as seahorses, sea cows, sea cucumbers, and sealions, and many of these are raised in seafarms by seafarmers who drive around on seatractors wearing sea flat caps and complain about the city types from Atlantis. Except for the sealions, which are of course kept in a zoo.

The sea is salty because it is the Earth's sweat. As climate change warms the globe, the Earth will sweat more, meaning that the seas increase in volume, and possibly odour, threatening many low-lying areas such as the lowlands of Holland, Lower Saxony and Lowestoft with a briny doom (or 'broom').

The sea is now 37 and lives in Sussex with its partner, Stephen, and Muffles the cat.