Be of good cheer, my weary readers, for I have espied land [Coral reefs around the world]

Scholarly and indeed devout readers of the Atoll Research Bulletin will at once recognize my title as a loose translation of an aphorism of Diogenes published in the eponymous Nashes Lenten Stuffe by Thomas Nashe in 1599. Pressed to say something on the fiftieth anniversary of the journal, which has been so central to the emergence of coral reef science as an independent discipline and in which I have played a part over some four decades, I might well paraphrase both Diogenes and Nashe to say, "Life is landfalls." This is particularly true for anyone concerned with coral reefs: there is always a sense of both relief and amazement to be back on dry land and to have escaped the dangers of the deep. Perhaps more particularly for me, since I have made the study of the ephemeral sediment accumulations on the top of the reef and the plants and animals that came both to espy them and survive on them one of the chief scholarly concerns of my life. In this reminiscence I will pretend, as in writing a scientific paper, that life's strategy has from the beginning been planned with sagacity, wisdom, and common sense. My many companions on reef studies around the world will know that a quite different version can readily be written. But then--as they also know--I could do the same for them. Some of the authors salient moments on coral reefs around the world and in the emergence of coral reef science as a discipline are recalled.