The Kindle edition of A SINGLE WAVE has gone live. I again thank all those who helped proof read. There may still be typos we all missed, but, if so, the number is incomparably smaller than it would have been without the kindness of others.
I have cursorily viewed the Kindle edition on an iPhone, iPad mini, and a Kindle Fire. On the i-devices there is an inexplicable mistake in the table of contents where a ‘chapter 16’ is listed out of place and when clicked links to the beginning of the RESURGAM section. This does not appear on the Kindle Fire. It is inexplicable because it also does not appear in the Pages document into which I retyped the book or in the ePub version which I uploaded to Amazon.
I enrolled the book into Amazon Select which prohibits it appearing anywhere else, specifically including being given away free on the author’s website. The commitment is for ninety days. If I remember, I may drop it from Amazon Select then.
As a marketing experiment, I set the price at $3.99 rather than $2.99 as on the other books. I am curious to see what, if any, difference this makes, though I have no certain way to measure the effect.
I have no idea when I will get around to preparing a Kindle edition of RETURN TO THE SEA.
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Within an hour or so of my posting the previous entry in which I mentioned the storms heading toward New Zealand, I received an email from Craig saying that while the article in the NZ HERALD was correct when written that morning, the situation had changed and the storms were no longer expected to reach the North Island.
A great thing about this is that Craig emailed from his boat at anchor off Urupukapuka Island about ten miles northeast of Opua. I could picture exactly where he was. I’m not sure of his Internet connection. Urupukapuka is uninhabited and there are certainly no hotspots there. Perhaps cell phone.
Craig attached two GRIB files to his email with instructions how to import and open them in LuckGrib, an Mac application he wrote. He gave me a copy a few months ago. I did and was able to watch the changed track of the storms. It is easy to update GRIBs from within the application. The track still looks good for New Zealand this morning.
This is a screenshot of LuckGrib showing the projected closest point of approach to the North Island on Monday, New Zealand time. As you can see, the storms do not combine, and one is near Australia’s Queensland coast to the left, while the other is 500 nautical miles from New Zealand’s North Cape.
Craig knows that I don’t much use GRIBs. At sea I have no way to receive them and no desire to have that tether to the land. I watch the barometer, the sky, the waves, and I feel the wind. Once on a passage, fretting about what weather might come is overrated. So far I’ve been able to deal with everything that has appeared, including Force 12 at least eight times.
But I expect I will use LuckGrib from time to time in port, particularly just before setting off on a passage. It is easy to use, visually very attractive, and provides a lot of interesting information, even though, as we have just seen, a morning’s alarm may be false by afternoon.
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I finished reading THE HORSE’S MOUTH, and last evening we watched the movie version. We own the DVD, but the film can be rented from iTunes and Amazon.
While I slightly prefer the book, the film is true to its essence and a great pleasure. Alec Guinness is perfect as Gulley Jimson.
As an old man Gulley Jimson strives for the epic, but is famous for his early smaller works. He paints because he is a painter. He paints huge murals on walls that he knows are going to be demolished. He paints for the love of the thing itself. You may recall Joshua Slocum using that very expression when sailing the LIBERDADE. Perhaps I am particularly struck by this after watching the recent Super Bowl in which a good football game, worth watching for itself, was all but lost in the commercials and half-time crap.
The biggest difference between the book of THE HORSE’S MOUTH and the film is the very last scene in each. The book goes one way, the film quite another. The scene in the film is totally unrealistic, but it is a joy.
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No. The ‘old and sexy’ is not about me.
That truly is living against all odds.
I thank Larry for the link.
