Tim Scott traces the outline of an old surfing scar that jags around his left eyebrow and shivers into the edge of his cheek. It鈥檚 been barely perceptible up until this moment, but now, standing in an equipment store on the Plymouth University campus, the harsh overhead lighting illuminates its path.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a shallow life that doesn鈥檛 give a person a few scars鈥 remarked American storyteller Garrison Keillor once upon a time. Tim鈥檚 portrait is testament to that.
But where to start with the story of the young scientist, whose years have been spent almost completely in dialogue with water? Is it with art, perhaps, and his eye for the aesthetics of the ocean, which he has expressed in abstract painting, sculpture and photography?
Maybe it鈥檚 Tim鈥檚 upbringing in Devon and the feeling that from the day of his birth, when he was given a pair of tiny kayak paddles, he鈥檚 been anointed into this life aquatic of his?
Or is it the science and the way his passion for surfing has given him an innate understanding of the forces that shape our beaches 鈥 and which occasionally lead swimmers into danger?
It is a confluence that has swirled Tim towards research and learning, leaving behind a lucrative career in the off-shore sector in Mexico, with all its international surfing fringe benefits.
鈥淭he sea is a constant and it is endlessly fascinating,鈥 he says. 鈥淭he coast has the same draw, it is raw geology, raw process, wiped clean every day by the sweep of the tide鈥.the sand bars are new every tide, the beach is new every tide. It is a complex response to different environmental conditions.鈥
That we鈥檙e standing in the store, surrounded by racks containing cables, ropes and scaffolding; surfboards, boots, and buoys, is due to an international research project into those very environmental conditions. Working alongside RNLI lifeguards at Perranporth beach in Cornwall, Tim has been using advanced GPS technology and lo-fi improvised devices to develop an understanding of the causation and behaviour of rip currents. Their findings promise to transform beach management across the country, through the development of a predictive model that will power a Met Office-backed early warning system.
A surfer since the age of three, Tim knows first-hand the dangers that rip currents can pose to the inexperienced. It was he, after all, who saved three rookies off Rossnowlagh in Donegal Bay in 2010 as they were being sucked out to sea.
鈥淎s surfers, we sit surrounded by waves for hours on end, waiting, observing, feeling the changing conditions,鈥 he says. 鈥淲e鈥檙e like human drifters. And that鈥檚 why when I study the data from this project, I look for patterns, those rhythms of nature, and you know instinctively whether they鈥檙e 鈥榬eal鈥 or not.鈥
It is the kind of insight you can鈥檛 find in text books or research papers. It is the kind of insight that just might go on saving lives.