Beneath the Garden State

Book excerpt: Illustrated with over 230 brilliant color photos, this unique book introduces readers to the strange and beautiful animals found in the Atlantic waters off New Jersey. See the beauty of the one-half-inch long naked sea butterfly or the fascinating blue shark, sandbar shark, and sand tiger shark. Watch a goosefish (monkfish) devour a black sea bass or a sea star growing new arms. The subjects are both familiar and unfamiliar. Visit New Jersey's artificial reefs made of subway cars, army tanks, armored personnel carriers, tugboats, and large ships. New Jersey's coastline is home to more than 2,000 shipwrecks, some of the more famous of which are captured here. The author's personal accounts of thirty years of scuba diving and photographing in New Jersey round out this engaging book. Whether you are a fisherman, scuba diver, surfer, beach lover, environmentalist or just someone who loves the ocean, this is the book for you.