Shipping Reporter visits Townsville's Jewel in the Crown and fills kitbag with his finds .
Our waterfront roundsman sniffed stories galore when he first stepped ashore on Magnetic island .
That was mainly due to the pungent smell from algal bloom which had closed popular Alma Bay beach , rated one of Queensland's best , the closure not picked up by the bloomin' mainland media .
Nevertheless , a group of divers turned up , walked down to the beach, bravely plunged into the smelly sea.
Needing to recover from the unpleasant aroma of Alma , the Shipping Reporter, the only one north of Bass Strait , went to a French eatery for a non-alcoholic snifter . Then he sailed into the nearby Vinnie's op shop and fluked a beaut 1979 nautical book, The Watermen (of Chesapeake Bay ) , by James A. Michener , drawings by John Moll ,plus two other books, one on Australian politics, the other , Neap Tide , a seemingly white pointer munched copy of a romance from the dangerous edges of the land and sea by West Australian poet and dramatist Dorothy Hewett.
