Updated January 5, 2021
With holidays, a birthday, or some other special occasion for celebration coming up, if you’re involved with a diver, this post is a good tool to help you get the perfect gift. A book is a particularly great choice, especially if you’re trying to stick to a budget. It can be a useful reference, source of adventure, or just an attractive coffee table source of conversation.
I’ve brought together a collection of highly recommended and popular scuba diving books. They cover a wide variety of categories to suit your particular niche.
In this post, we will examine titles concerning Pacific Northwest marine life and diving.
Categories:
- log book
- educational/reference
- cave
- underwater explorer
- sea life
- safety/survival
- wreck
- inspirational
- children’s
- fiction/stories
- underwater photographer
- freediving
- pacific northwest marine life
If you want to see books in other categories, just click on the topic in the list.
Pacific Northwest Marine Life
Beneath Cold Seas: The Underwater Wilderness of the Pacific Northwest by David Hall
, 160 pages
National Outdoor Book Award for Design and Artistic Merit winner, this book by David Hall combines his artistic photography with lively scientifically sophisticated explanations of the marine life and eco-system of the cold-water Pacific Northwest Coast from California to Alaska. This author who is widely published in journals including National Geographic, Natural History, Smithsonian, BBC Wildlife, Geo, Time and Terre Sauvage, and in a series of ten children’s books, lends his expertise to exploring species interrelationships and unusual animal behaviors. He reveals the intriguing diversity and variety of life from tiny candy-stripe shrimp to giant Pacific octopus to jellyfish swarms and migrating salmon. The excellent explanations for each section are perfect introductions to great coffee table photographs to share with friends and discuss. There is also an introduction by Sarika Cullis-Suzuki emphasizing conservation of this rich, vulnerable eco-system.
Coastal Fishes of the Northwest by Phil Edgell, 
352 pages
This second edition published in 2010 is a popular non-technical guide covering 250 species of Pacific Northwest fishes from the viewpoint of divers, anglers, and tidepoolers. There are quality color photographs of the fish in their natural setting along with well-produced black and white drawings to demonstrate species characteristics. Range and biological information are presented along with aspects of special interest.
Whelks to Whales, Revised Second Edition: Coastal Marine Life of the Pacific Northwest by Rick M. 
Harbo, 328 pages
This easy to use field guide for marine life in the coastal zones of British Columbia, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and northern California was revised in 2010. It has full-color photographs of 400 common species of flora and fauna including algae, jellyfish, sponges, crabs, shrimp, clams, barnacles, snails, fish, seals and whales, and hundreds of others all arranged for quick use with color-coded sections, a glossary, and a full index. The photos are accompanied by full yet concise information on size, range, habitat, and points of interest about each species.
Super Suckers: The Giant Pacific Octopus and Other Cephalopods of the Pacific Coast by James A. 
Cosgrove and Neil McDaniel, 256 pages
The authors have more than 40 years of experience studying and chasing after cephalopods to understand them and get some good photos of behavior. They share their own stories, anecdotes from divers and aquarists, and a discussion of octopus legends. Their research has uncovered never before published behaviors to go with their color photographs of the giant Pacific octopus, the Humboldt squid, and ruby octopus along with other remarkable cephalopods inhabiting the Pacific coastal region.
Greg Dombowky’s Diver’s Guide: Vancouver Island South by
Inspired by Jacques Cousteau as a kid, the author got started in diving in the late 1980s. As he proceeded through the ranks to become a PADI instructor, he found that there wasn’t much useful information about diving in his primary region, Victoria, British Columbia, and the south end of Vancouver Island, where there are rich flora and fauna and world-class cold water diving. He took it upon himself to map out the dive sites and develop his computer skills in order to publish this functional guide for 50 sites in the Victoria area.
Encyclopedia is the correct name for this tome of 1,700 beautiful color photographs of more than 1,400 species complete with information on appearance, behavior, range, and habitat. The two authors have made over 4,000 dives between them over most of their lives compiling the photos and data. It is easy to use with color-coding, a glossary, and a full index. Marine Life of the Pacific Northwest is great for the casual beachcomber, scuba diver, or serious marine biologist with a range of intriguing flora and fauna from southern Alaska to southern Oregon.
I hope you found this post on the best Pacific Northwest Marine Life books interesting and helpful. If you have any questions or ideas, please feel free to share them in the comments section. I’d love to know what you think. If there is no comments section directly below, click here: >>comments<<
Leave a Reply