A captivating memoir that explores the lure of the sea and the author's love affair with surfing.
For Fiona Capp, surfing had always been more than physical. It had been a way of bringing together the life of the body and the life of the mind. Even after fifteen years out of the water, she still harboured the dream of taking up surfing again. Almost forty, she realised that if she didn't do it soon, she probably never would. It was time to get back in the water and confront her fears.
Alongside her personal journey, Capp explores surfing as an emblem of freedom and of humanity's yearning to be at one with the natural world. It is a story that goes back to a time when the Pacific peoples first learned to walk on water, and when Enlightenment Europe first stumbled upon this "most supreme pleasure".
Her journey takes her from the wild, cold waters of Victoria north to Byron Bay and then to Hawaii, Cornwall and France. As well as recovering a dormant part of herself, Capp finds that something unexpected happens to her view of Australia and its place in the world.
'That Oceanic Feeling' is about the lure of the sea, about why we feel compelled to push ourselves out of our safety zones and venture into unknown waters.
