Book reviews

Jessica Watson sails into
young adult fiction

She’s famous for her non-stop, unassisted circumnavigation while 16 years old – but Jessica Watson’s new horizons, a website and her writing, are sure to bring her new followers. In… Read more

Search for justice
in the tropics

Cruisers passing Queensland's Magnetic Island and Palm Island further north are, at first, probably more focussed on the weather and the water and the blessed landscape than on the social… Read more

A dive to the
edge of darkness

One breath. That’s one long out-breath because the air, accumulated through slow inhalations and then “sipping” to saturate the lungs with every scrap you can fit in, is all you… Read more

Wray's Ngataki - the dream
that became reality

In 1932, young Johnny Wray, fired from a job he was doing indifferently, thought it a good idea to stay at home with his parents and build a boat in… Read more

First Fleet's extraordinary voyage

There are many reasons to study the arrival of the First Fleet in the Great South Land – history, diasporas, dispossession and a search for courage amongst them - but… Read more

A catch for collectors

Weighing a hefty new compilation in the hand, a collector of sea stories has the same quickening of the pulse that assails the collector of china or the hoarder of… Read more

Navigating a path to posterity

In these two books, each of which takes a great seafarer and navigator as its subject, the particular interest of the authors is immediately apparent. Rob Mundle, sailor, journalist and… Read more

Perception and imagination - the
other life of the Reef

No description or photograph quite prepares a swimmer for an unspoilt reef. At first glance it is astonishing; at close examination it is truly wondrous – the intricate forms, the… Read more