The Martian, a Beach Full of Sand, and Why I'll Never Complain About Dinner Again

August 22, 2026

There’s a moment on this trip where I looked up from my book, stared down a good kilometre of beach, and thought: Mark Watney would hate it here. Not because of the beach — because of the sand. The man got enough of that on Mars to last ten lifetimes.

I’m reading The Martian by Andy Weir this week, and if you somehow missed it: an astronaut named Mark Watney gets stranded alone on Mars. No rescue coming. Just him, a broken habitat, a whole planet of red sand, and a math problem that keeps trying to kill him. It’s a survival story dressed up as a science lesson, and it’s a lot funnier than that makes it sound. The guy meets near-certain death with a dry, keep-your-chin-up humour that makes you root for him from page one.

Now here’s the part that got me. To stay alive, Watney has to grow food. And what does he grow? Potatoes. Just potatoes. Thousands of them. He eats potatoes for what feels like a year. Boiled, rationed, counted one by one.

Meanwhile, I closed the book, and Diana and I got cleaned up and went out for a nice dinner at El Avión. If you’ve never heard of it: it’s a restaurant built into an old cargo plane, parked on a hill about a hundred and fifty metres above the water, with what everybody agrees is the best sunset in Manuel Antonio. We had steak and cocktails and watched the whole sky go orange over the Pacific.

And here’s the part that made D laugh into her drink. Watney spends the entire book trying to get off a planet in a spaceship. And there I was, having supper inside an airplane that is never, ever leaving the ground. I’ll take the grounded one, thanks. It has a bar.

I’m not going to lie to you — I felt a little spoiled. And a little grateful. Back home in Regina, a February supper is whatever survived the freezer. Down here, Diana and I split a steak while the sun sets, and nobody’s rationing potatoes. Watney would’ve cried.

That’s the thing this book does to you. It makes an ordinary meal feel like a miracle. You start noticing that being warm, fed, and not-currently-suffocating is a pretty good deal. Diana says I get philosophical after two drinks. I say the book started it.

Does it survive beach conditions? Easily. The Martian is built for distraction. Short, punchy log entries, so when Cole comes tearing across the sand yelling that Luke buried the good sunscreen, you can bookmark and dive right back in without losing the thread. It survived waves, kids, and the rum. High marks.

Fair warning: there’s real math and science in here. Watney explains how he’s going to make water or grow food, step by step. I’m a carpenter — I like knowing how a thing actually works, so this was my catnip. If numbers make your eyes glaze over, don’t worry, the jokes carry you across the dry patches.

So here’s my beach-chair verdict. Read The Martian if you want something tense without being grim — smart, but never showing off — that also happens to make you weirdly grateful for the plate in front of you. Just maybe don’t read it right before a fancy dinner, unless you’re prepared to feel a little guilty about the steak.

I’m going to go order dessert. For Watney. He’d understand.