All his life, Robert Macomber has lived on islands or very close to the water. First, it was on San Carlos, then Cape Coral, Alva, Matlacha, Pine Island, Estero Island.
“I was a sailor,” he recalled. “By the time I was 16, I was an offshore captain. My father was a captain, and he loved history. He loved the sea. It was a natural foundation for me to become what I am today.”
What Macomber has become today could well be described as an amphibian of sort. He is an author, whose seventh novel of the award-winning Honored series has just come out. This latest book, “The Honored Dead,” will find Lt. Cmdr. Peter Wake from the Office of Naval Intelligence, aboard a riverboat on the Mekong River, in 1883 French Indochina, which later became Vietnam.
Macomber writes his books on terra firma, in his home office; however, other occupations take him to the middle of oceans. He has been an annual guest author and speaker aboard Queen Mary II ever since the British ship made her maiden voyage. He has done the same aboard the Queen Victoria and the Silver Sea fleet of ultra-luxury liners, he says, and he works with Florida PBS on maritime documentaries.
On Nov. 7, Macomber will be on solid ground at the Tarpon Lodge Inn & Restaurant at 13771 Waterfront Drive in Bokeelia, for a fund raising luncheon benefiting the Foundation for Quality Child Care Inc., from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. There, he will tell how he researches his novels by making two annual trips around the world. He does not invent incidents happening to his characters. Most often, they have happened to him.
Macomber will also sign copies of “The Honored Dead.”
The Foundation’s executive director, Irene Giniat, said Noble Jewelers Gold Exchange will also be there to “exchange your gold for a check.”
“A percentage of all proceeds from gold and silver that is brought to the luncheon will be donated to the Foundation,” she wrote in a prepared statement.
The non-profit foundation’s mission is to “support quality child care options for disadvantaged children in Southwest Florida.”
Macomber is to describe his life as a writer and lecturer going all over the world in search of adventures for the heroes of his stories.
“I am very, very blessed, he said,” speaking as he sat in his home, surrounded by memorabilia he has brought back from several continents. “I get to do very exciting things and I meet very interesting people. I have readers in 10 countries, and I go all over the world, but I love coming home.”
In January and February, his lectures will take him to the Pacific. In September, he is in Europe.
He was once asked by a French-born interviewer whether he speaks foreign languages. He replied:
“I am conversant in Spanish, but mon français c’est très mal.”
“I can get along in Hebrew, the Israeli Hebrew, Arabic, Vietnamese, and a little Cambodian and Samoan,” he said.
Macomber is scheduled to be back in French Polynesia to give lectures.
“For my latest book, I spent three months in Southeast Asia and for another I was several months in South America and Africa,” he said.
Speaking of his presentation for the Foundation’s benefit, and where it is to take place, Macomber said, “I’ll be in a beautiful surrounding, and I’ll talk about my world travels. It is a light-hearted look at some troubles you can get yourself into, in foreign countries, and how you can get out of it.”
While he depicts these troubling situations he found himself in the midst of, he hopes his listeners “should they someday encounter similar situations abroad” will have learned from him how to get out unscathed.