VIETNAM VETERAN: lifeboat from the “Jeparit”.

Pic: Boat - Low Head pilot station museum.

This type of aluminium lifeboat was developed during the Vietnam War when the Australian Navy was experimenting with various materials. It did not perform well in the water and today there are very few still in existence due to the corrosion it suffered.

Pic: Ship – “Jeparit” – Royal Australian Navy website.

 Between 1967 and 1972, sailing under both merchant and naval ensigns, “Jeparit” made 43 voyages in support of Australian operations in Vietnam, steaming over 410,000 miles during that time and carrying some 175,000 deadweight tons of cargo including such varied items as canteen stores, ammunition and stores for civil aid.

Authors - your Amazon book page is your main shop-front.

The significance of seemingly insignificant facts.

While it may be only the cover image and title that has attracted some customers to your novel, once your book is published on Amazon, potential readers can garner lots of information from that single page about you, your book, your style of writing, its review star rating, and the publication standard - be it traditional or home-grown. These are aside from the pertinent facts like page count and price.

   When browsing a book’s page, price for me, is the first thing I check out. Personally, I don’t buy e-books that retail around $10 or more.

    I then consider the number of star reviews the book has received and the value of the stars. I regard 4 and 5 stars at about the same value and don’t usually read more than one or two of the printed reviews. Keep in mind that a newly released book with only 5 star reviews might be the result of friends and relatives being the first customers who feel obliged to boost the writer’s ego. An occasional low star review amongst many does not concern me. But if the low star reviews outweigh the higher star counts then I want to know why.

   I always read the author’s Bio(graphy). It provides an insight into the personality of the person behind the pen – their sex, age, background, nationality and interests. Can I align with that writer?

    I then scroll down to the facts Amazon provides about each book such as the date of publication. Is it a new release or has it been around for years? What is the page count? Some books have less than 100 pages, others have over 500.

    Next I check out the publisher. Has the book been traditionally or self-published, though it is not always easy to determine.

   For me, the main factor which will determine if I will buy is the “Look inside” facility. Most e-books on Amazon have this option available – just click on the cover thumbnail.

    Scrolling through a few pages provides a facsimile of how the book will present when opened on your Kindle or reading device. Correct or poor formatting is immediately obvious. Poor spelling, punctuation and syntax indicate the book has not been well edited. Finally, by reading the opening chapter the potential purchaser will know if he/she likes the writer’s style and if the opening pages have grabbed their attention and made them want to read more.

    For any author, writing the book is the main. Having the work edited and formatted comes second. Then throwing together a Bio and Blurb for Amazon is often the last chore the author is confronted with.

    But the Amazon web page on which your book appears is your shop-front and it is the information that appears there that has most bearing on whether a customer decides to purchase your novel or not.

    Just my thought for the day.  

Taphophilia - an affliction found in graveyards.

Do you suffer from TAPHOPHILIA? 

I know I do. I caught it from my Dad when I was a young child.

Perhaps you have also been struck down by it. Don't know, then ask yourself:

“Do you love to roam through cemeteries when you're on holiday? If so, there's a word for what you've got: "taphophilia", a love of graves and the rituals of death.

Taphophiles, also known as "gravers", are the people who pore over epitaphs, gravestones and the history of the dead.” ***

For historians and family history researchers, epitaphs on graves read like a map to the past – connecting people, places and events. Often they tell of grief and loss, but also of emigration, incarceration, trauma and tragedy.

A few weeks ago, I wandered through the graveyard on Norfolk Island. This consecrated ground captures the history of First Fleeters, officers and guards responsible for the lives and deaths of convicts sentenced to the most diabolical penal settlement in Australia. 

The graves also recognise generation of descendants of the mutinous crew of HMS Bounty who despatched Captain Bligh to the Pacific Ocean in an open boat over 200 years ago.

Unfortunately, the main problem with "taphophilia" is that once the bug gets into your blood stream there is no cure.

*** by Fiona Pepper and Claudette Werden for ‘Blueprint for Living’ (ABC).

My Writing Journey - an author's inspiration stirred by the sea

When my life was turned upside down in the 90s, I decided there were certain things I wanted to do – one was to sail on a tall ship and the other to write a book.

Living in Western Australia, my first experience of sailing was a twelve day voyage on a barquentine in the Indian Ocean. During bow watch one night, I witnessed the sea’s magic, and was hooked.

On the deck of STS Leeuwin off the Monte Bello Islands.

That experience and the feelings that accompanied it inspired me to write my first book. I titled the story: ILLUSIVE DIAMONDS after the bio-luminescent particles in the sea that had amazed me. However, the London publishing house that bought the production rights did not like the working title and asked me to change it. Hence I called the novel SEA DUST. That was 2005.

Margaret Muir/M.C.Muir 

From there, I wrote four other historical fiction stories for them, targeting a female readership and the first of the nautical fiction series featuring Captain Oliver Quintrell. But, as the publisher and I did not see eye to eye on the latter’s publication, I withdrew from the traditional route and turned to self publishing. I have never looked back.

A few years ago, I combined three of my early novels in a Box Set entitled:  YORKSHIRE GRIT and was delighted to see my stories reach best seller status on Amazon for a short time. 

Recently I have concentrated on nautical fiction, writing under the by-line M.C. Muir and targeting a male readership. 

The UNDER ADMIRALTY ORDERS SERIES has become very popular.

All my titles are available on Amazon as e-books and paperbacks.

For anyone interested, SEA DUST is FREE on Amazon for the next few days.

Pics: STS Leeuwin ll and yours truly aboard  Leeuwin off the Monte Bello Islands.

Pumice and Pumice Rafts

Pumice collected from beach on Norfolk Island (May 2017)

Having recently visited Norfolk Island (located in the S. Pacific midway between Australia and New Zealand) I was struck by the amount of pumice on the beaches and was told it came from an underwater volcano off New Zealand.

It probably relates to a major undersea volcano, the previously little-known Havre Seamount in the Kermadec Islands of New Zealand, which erupted in 2012.

A raft of pumice floating on the sea

 

The huge volume of molten rock, produced by the eruption, resulted in a large area of floating pumice known as a PUMICE RAFT. This originally covered a surface of 400 square kilometres (150 square miles). 

The raft divided by a boat sailing through

 

The thickness of the raft may have been as great as 3.5mt (11ft) but reduced to around 0.5mt (1ft 8in) within a month. It soon spread to a continuous float of between 7,500 and 10,000 sq. miles (19,000 and 26,000km²) and within three month dispersed to an area of more than twice the size of New Zealand. 

Beach at Norfolk Island dotted with pumice

Reports followed of pumice being found of the beaches of Tasmania and eastern Australia.

Dr Carey University of Tasmania) said pumice rafts were believed to have been a primary means for the transport of sedentary marine species between continents in prehistoric times.

Huge raft see from space

Photos of the PUMICE RAFT taken after a volcanic eruption in the South Pacific give an indication of its immense size both from water level and from space.

(Courtesy of the USGS and Smithsonian Institute).

^{Kermadec Islands eruption}