Now this is blast from the past. This is a 1967 recording by the San Sebastian Strings of music, composed by Anita Kerr, to accompany prose reflections by Rod McKuen (the first of several such collaborations). I first heard it in 1974 when Daddy got the 8-track (which I still have) and we listened to it over and over on a summer trip. I then took it with me to Irving when I went to school at Cistercian in 1974-75, and listened to it a fair amount there. Interesting, some of the reviewers on Amazon had the same introduction to it. It's a theme album written around McKuen's musings on the sea. According to the liner notes (also available at http://www.mckuen.com/discography/wb1670.htm ) McKuen threw out what he had written for the album when he heard the music Kerr had written for it, and he was enthusiastic about writing songs with her for a long time to come (which they did). "I cross streets more carefully now" he ends, in a comment that I particularly liked.
Of course the music and comments are a bit dated (and the audio of the speaker is at times simply terrible) but it holds up surprisingly well. Probably not many albums from 1967 could say that. I only listened to it quickly this weekend, and most of the time with at least two kids running around the study raising hell, but it was nice to hear it again.