Image Five
The communications array and radar domes on the top deck of "The Lady Peacemaker."
Imagine trying to parachute onto THIS in high winds in the dark! Of course, that's all I could do... was just imagine. You can plainly see the torturous weather we had to endure off the coast of Queensland... talk about show-offs! No wonder they advertise the days as wonderful one day and perfect the next!
You can also see the jogging track and top of the ship's bridge, where a lot of the action takes place. And man oh man, you haven't jogged until you've tried jogging around a ship that's not only heaving forward and back as it lurches through waves, but is also teetering from side to side, cruising forward at a fair speed AND perched 12 stories above the waves! No wonder my poor hero got sea-sick!
Image Six
As luck would have it, a few containerships were being loaded at the same time as our cruise ship was leaving the Port of Brisbane. So here's the old rust bucket that inspired "The Nereus"
A few extra hours research after my sunburnt return a week later and I soon knew how fast I could dump the containers overboard at sea, how fast she could go empty, and how big an explosion I'd get from a high speed collision! Yahoo! What fun research can be!
Image Seven
Mount Tambora from space. An awesome sight! I've added a few extra sightseeing notes which relate only to Project Apocalypse, but you can google it yourself for free and zoom in by sattelite (as close as you want and even spin it around to look at the island and peak from any direction) Just go to google-earth.com then download the free program and zoom in to the co-ordinates shown on the bottom of this photo.
Handy hint #1: as extra fun, try turning the planet to your own country and zooming down on your own house from space. It's so amazing. I can see the bottom step of my swimming pool from space! (Therefore never going skinny dipping again! har har)
Handy hint #2: Google-earth.com is a fantastic for helping you to research settings for your own stories, as well as getting overhead images of places and large monuments for school projects! (Also pretty good for getting overhead pics of traffic intersections for insurance claims and explaining why you didn't deserve that last speeding ticket!)
NOTE: To read the short story that was based on the deleted scene from Project Apocalypse, CLICK HERE... but prepared to choose your own death! (evil laugh)
Some more amazing pics of the volcano:
7b) another cool snapshot courtesy of google-earth's fabulous free satelite imaging.
7c) Looking down into the mist of the crater itself:
Image Eight
Here's the photo that inspired the "Flamebearded" bad-guy from Project Apocalypse. From memory, the pic came from a magazine advertisement for electric razors - such a clever job at shaving! But I'm very sorry to say that I didn't keep the rest of the ad, so if anyone know's who took this very clever photo, or which company it was advertising, please let me know so I can give them a proper credit. It's amazing!
