A Tale of Dark Water

Prepare yourselves, dear friends, for a tale like to curl your hair is about to unfold.

We'd recently weighed anchor after spending a delightful, though unavoidable, hiatus on the beaches and in the loving hospitality of the beautiful tropic isle thanks to the quick thinking and expert seamanship of our new Navigator who, citing dehibilitating cowardice after the attack by the privateers, had opted to stay behind. The wind to our backs and the knowledge of safe waters ahead filled our sails and our hopes to overflowing, and off we were on yet another expedition, with quite a bit of fishing time to be made up after our tangential respite. As it vanished over the horizon, we bade our final farewells to the small island that had harbored us during the bucaneer's seige, but freedom, and riches, promised to be in our future.

As night fell, an eerie calm came over the sea. A body of water untroubled is far more dangerous than a stormy sea any day, and the water's surface shone like a mirror in the deepening gloom. Soon, the sky was pitch black, and the crew was becoming noticeably jumpy.







It being near suppertime and us being in open water as we were, I ordered the crew below deck to eat. Now, Blue Lips is as fine a fisherman as e'er I've met, but his true talents lie in the galley. On these longer voyages, food is often scarce save for the bounty of the sea, and were we to eat our own stores, we'd soon find that there'd be no profit to fund the next excursion. As such, we travel with long-lasting grains and dried meats. Oats are a mainstay, as are dried, salted potatos called "chips." We hadn't taken any food from the island, it being mostly fruit and short-lived victuals, which wouldn't survive or keep fresh very long out on the high seas.

As the crew ran below deck, a few passing the galley were heard to ask Blue Lips what the meal was to be. The boy replied:

"Well, yern day t'was Fish-Loaf Day... that'd make today Chip-Oat Day."





"Yar! I loves Chip-Oat Day!" The crewman responded.



And so the crew filled their bellies with as much of the scarfables as was possible, trying to put out of their minds the sense of foreboding that had been with them above deck, and which was waiting for them to return. Understandably, attempting to eat while haunted by such a dark and demonic sensation proved more difficult than some would have hoped, certainly more than Ol' Peg Leg was prepared for.



Of course, there's more than one way to keep one's spirits up while on the high seas. Luckily for the crew, Blue Lips was also an accomplished musician as well as an expert fry cook, and as he played a long-forgotten salt shanty, a tribute to one of the saltiest salts of all, we danced a seaman's jig to liven our spirits and warm our hearts.





In the end the food replenished our ebbing fortitude, and the frivolity on deck revived our mettle in the face of ominous seas. After the dancing, Blue Lips and I found ourselves slightly winded and light-headed. The food we ate during a voyage was meant to allay hunger and to keep one alive but little else, and did not provide for the occasional ful-force jig. The feeling would not last forever so, tired and malnourished though we were, we set about the night's business.




Ol' Peg Leg knew he was not to eat the night's catch. Without any catch in the hold, there'd be no future for the crew. Without a successful haul, we simply wouldn't be able to continue in the lives we'd chosen. As delcious as Blue Lips managed to make each meal, however, in the end it was hardly enough to keep us nourished from day to day, and this seemed to affect Ol' Peg Leg more than any of us. We'd seen his need for sustenance overcome his sensibilties before, and his inability to satiate the urge with the only other viable prey on the open sea. Feeling the weakness begin to drag his arms and legs behind him, Ol' Peg Leg employed an old sailor's trick for getting vital nutrients into the body which I'd not seen employed for quite some time.



At first, when I saw him staring at the implement, I didn't realize his plan. However, when I realized what he planned to do I tried everything in my power to stop him, for though these colloquial aids had their merits, they were sometimes dangerous and carried with them real consequences.

"Peggy," I said, as I am wont to call him, "please, don't think to do such an act! Yer stomach, swole and pale from days at sea, can't handle such a great barrel of nutrition all in one go!"

But I could see, he was resolute.



"Dear God, Peggy... what have you become?"

And in horror, I watched as my dear, dear friend put his life on the line, all in the name of ravenous hunger and the cold, unfeeling sea.





...

The next day, I had one of the cabin boys take a water-pump to the head, Ol' Peg Leg's experiment with his emergency nutritional supplements having gone rather sour and the resulting punishment doled out to the ship's facilities having led to an almost complete shut down of all civilized amenities aboard the vessel.



Later, Ol' Peg Leg was flogged.

...

As the sun set on yet another day, Blue Lips let cry with a "HEYO, HUP HUP!!!" from the ship's keel.



Evidently, in the small nook we'd afforded our Navigator as quarters, Blue Lips had found a shred of a map. The Navigator had taken everything else in his possession with him, being a rather untrusting sort, and must have let this shred drop by accident. At that moment, I didn't find it necessary to press Blue Lips about why he had been nosing around the man's effects, for the prospect of what this small peice of evidence held for us, and for our prosperity, seemed far more important.





In that small sliver of paper, I saw not only a mystery. I saw the chance for a better life, a life filled with something other than just fish and chips. A life filled with adventure, with salt and sea and air and blood! I saw a chance to free my crew from an existence licking blood off metal objects and eating haul to haul, living hand-to-mouth. Finally, we may have a chance at an existence other than the one we'd forged for ourselves. This slip of paper was our ticket out.

Unfortunately, without the Navigator on board, we were forced to rely on Ol' Peg Leg's skills direction which, while honed, were nowhere near as expert as the chinaman's had been. After a few false starts, we managed to find the correct heading, and were on our way to whatever it was that the scrap held for us.

As we neared our destination, once again the sea seemed to take on an uncharacteristic calm. A fog rolled over, and we could scarcely see the stern from the stem. As we moved through the mists, the crew remained high-spirited, looking forward to a life free of rotting fish and marauding pirates. A life of adventure.

Then... out of the fog... came the warnings.









We had followed the instructions perfectly. I couldn't understand why we'd been led to such a place as this. Were Peg Leg's bearing incorrect? Had this all been some cruel joke by the Navigator? Had someone sprung us a trap?

A soft breeze wafted over the deck, the merest sigh from the sea's bosom, and took the small piece of paper gingerly off the helm's rail and onto the deck, showing the reverse side of the scrap. We all stared.



Ol' Peg Leg stifled a scream. Blue Lips slunk into the shadows below deck. I stood there, one hand on the helm, staring at the slip of paper. The crew looked to me, in fear and in anger, as the sound of the ocean waters faded, and the darkness began to envelope the ship.

...

Caught: Gray Smoothhound Shark - 1
Days Until Next Voyage: 3
Outlook: Grim.

The Battle of the Buckaneers Puissantic

Avast! Far off the starboard deck the telltale sign of a merchant steamer showed itself. Another bright day was upon us, and the hope of a bountious catch rose aloft in our hearts as did the billowy plume. The majestic prow of our vessel joaled in and out of the cresting waves (meaning, for our land-locked readers, it seemed to throw itself to the ground again and again, an old sea phrase from when "fall" was first heard by the Gaelic speaking Irish, who Gaelicized its pronunciation to "joal." Those stinking irish, is there nothing they won't Mick up?)


As the ship drew nearer, it became clear that, perhaps, this was not the friendly merchant voyager we believed it to be. It could very well have been a crew of privateers, pirates ye ken, hoping to make swift with our equipment and supplies, new and undiminished so early in our voyage, and dispatch the crew to leave no soul to tell the tale. I bade our new navigator set a new course, and game lad that he is, he went to the task as Ol' Peg Leg steered us clear of the advancing brigands.


And what would a ship be without a navigator? This young skullpumpkin was picked up on one of our long-away journeys to the far east, where luxurious silks flourish on land and creatures the likes of which you'd never expect abound in the sea. The boy seemed apt enough, through his manner of speech be warped and skewed, we'll soon right him with a few months in our company and a few bats about the ears!




Blue Lips, Ol' Peg Leg, and myself were all prepared for our voyage, and cheerful in heart at the prospect of warmer climes and friendlier seas than had accompanied us in the past. Fortunately, this year the call was for summer season fishing, and our journey would be taking us to a sunnier destination than others had in the past and, inevitably, would in the future.


Ah, the first cast of a new voyage is always the finest. Our navigator proved himself to be a bit of a jacques-dandy in the beginning, afeared as he was of the sun's harsh oppression so easily found on the open ocean. What little help could have been garnered by such habidashery was minimal, though, as the mirror-like surface of my beloved blue aids the beams in seeking out yer hide, no matter where ye secret it away.


Clearly, this new recruit's lack of respect for our beloved Deep and, vicariously, Pelicor, did not sit well with me.


Tempers flared, and though Blue Lips attempted to come between his long-time commander and his newfound friend, there are few rivalries found in nature quite so deep-seated and as unerringly hateful as that between a Captain and a navigator. Words were exchanged, the conversation soon became heated, and upon the mention of his people's "unfortunate but undeniable predilection for aural rape," our new navigator attempted to engage his commander in Base Physicality. Unfortunately, the devotion my crew has for their Captain is unsurpassed by any who sail the brine, and Ol' Peg Leg himself through himself betwist me and my would-be attacker, only to catch the full force of the assault himself.


Reeling away, leaving the Chinaman open, Ol' Peg Leg had left me the advantage, and I quickly dispatched the young lad to the deck, informing him that, if we wished to continue to affront me thusly, he would find himself thrown to the deck again and again, and would soon find himself, as is the phrase on the high seas, "joaling like a prow."

Luckily for him, more pressing matters demanded my attention, and I was forced to divert my focus from his egregious lack of decorum to the very real concern that our voyage had not yet yielded a sufficient bounty. In point of fact, no fish at all had been caught, as long as we had already spent on the water. This was bad news indeed, for a lack of harvest would prove to not only waste the outift's time and money, but would only serve to further put on edge the crew's sensibilities, and would surely instigate more mutinous occurences, especially with this new and volatile mate aboard.


The desperation came quicker than I'd hoped. Ol' Peg Leg had become convinced that he could offset the loss incurred through our lack of marine catches by supplementing it with avian hauls. By catching birds, he thought he could prepare the winged creatures in such a way as to make them seem as fish. Seeing the ludicrousness of his plan, and realizing long before he himself did that he had little chance of catching a single bird, I allowed this activity to continue, if only to take the poor man's mind off the situation at hand. Of course, such actions would undoubtedly anger Pelicor, but in desperate times one must make the decisions that softer men would balk at.




Still, no catch, neither fish nor fowl, blessed our ship, and as the days wore on the rebellion welling up in the belly of each crew member was palpable as they went about their daily routines. Small scuffles began to form and, one fateful day, I was sure that we would find ourselves at each other's throats, ready to stop the life of our crewmates for lack of haul.


Suddenly, a cry from the crow's nest, high above the ship's deck. The rogue merchant steamer had once again been spotted, and rather than the lazy path it had seemingly happened to take towards us previously, it was now barreling straight towards us at an alarming speed. We harldy had any time to react, for the craft would soon be upon us, and fierce though my men are, little resistance they'd be able to put up against the full weight of the mechanized horror now bearing down upon us. Ol' Peg Leg brought us about, while Blue Lips readied the cannons (odd, for a fishing ship, but useful we find, just the same) and we fled as best we could from the oncoming leviathan.


As the behemoth bore down on us, and as our last hope of escape seemed to ebb away with the going tide, a squeak piped from my quarters, which has become the makeshift navigator's offices pending his eventual acceptance into our illustrious cadre. At first, I was quick to dismiss the snaptacker, readying myself for battle with the horrendous, probably Irish aggressors that would soon be boarding our ship, lest they simply ram the craft to splinters. But the boy was persistent, and before I could slap him across the face and issue another barrage of crippling racial slurs, he directed my attention to a map and, as quickly as the winds change, our hope returned to us. I relinquished immediate command of the vessel, instructing Ol' Peg Leg to do as the goulie said, and helped Blue Lips with our delaying tactic of peppering the onslaught with grapeshot while jettisoning all available floatsom and jetsom to speed our flight.

Under the direction of our new navigator, who if had not proven himself with this act of cunning would be hard pressed to find another means through which to legitimize his position, Ol' Peg Leg steered the vessel to what was to be our salvation.


Land! Never did I think I would be so grateful to see the dry beaches of land. Our new navigator, and as of that moment our new crew member, had happened upon a small and seldom acknowledged key which would not prove to be much of a trading port, but which would provide more than enough shoreline to beach our pursuers while allowing our smaller vessel easy passage over its shoals and reefs. The metallic monstrosity behind us, with a sickening groan of twisting metal, lurched to a halt as it found its harbor below the surface, and boiled with escaping air as it slowly went to bed in the locker of Capt. Jones himself!


We took a brief shore leave, after that harrowing journey, and celebrated our new navigator's heroism in the densely populated, tropical paradise the island's capital offered. The people there were warm and friendly, a native folk whose strange customs and exotic way of life showed me that these indigenous people were not so different from myself and my crewmates, especially in the light of what our newest acquisition had accomplished in the face of danger. Truly, these foreign animal-people, from wherever they came from, island, dark continent or yellow nation, were friends.. not foes.

As we wandered the streets, I began to realize I had visited this tiny isle before, in my early days of seafring under the tutelige of my first Captain, the Hnbl. Capt. James Argyle Sweatervest and his Rowdy Rockbottoms. Ah, to be a Rockbottom again... the journey into my own memory was a sweet one. And did remind me of a haunt I and my fellow 'Bottoms would often frequent.


So we visited this favorite inn of mine, and I introduced the crew to many fine local dishes. Unfortunately, the structure seemed to have been built, lo those many years ago, too near the shoreline, and was now completely flooded by fresh seawater. No matter, the seawater was drunk with the fishes and bilge, and all was good and plentiful.

We restocked our hold, bade farewell to our new friends, and finished the excursion in high spirits. Whether we were to catch a fish or not, friendships and comraderies were forged on those hard days on the open sea, the likes of which will hardly be put asunder with ease.







...

3/30/2006

Fish Caught: 0
Friends Made: 1
Days until Next Voyage: 7

...

Give 'em a heave ho.

Yarrr.. I'm a diabetic

HOW ABOUT SOME SEAWATER FOR YAR BRINY SOULS!!!

YAR! Tis a FISH! Blue Lips' first fish! He landed the beast with a ferocious SLAM against the piling of the pier.

Bugger and Gullyfluff

After my crew had unadvisedly gone to sea without my presence on the last excursion, I was less than excited about the coming voyage. Treacherous sea dogs they may be, but never would I have suspected they'd be capable of such low debauchery. I say, it heavied me heart to see such fine young men turn so quickly agianst their kith and kin. Still, the catch had to be taken in, and so we set out again for the open ocean, myself more than a little apprehensive.



A new member to the crew, out on his sophomore excursion, Blueblackbluebeard was there, and understandably excited. The season had turned, the winds had stopped blowing away visibility, and the promise of a fecund sea did call us to our destiny.



Aided by none other than our own Ol' Peg Leg, we headed off to a bad start by leaving vital equipment, not the least of which was our ship's log, behind on shore, rendering us unable to record the day's catch or the ship's progress. Ol' Peg Leg headed back to shore to retrieve the gear, while the rest of the crew continued the work at hand, only praying that, eventually, we would find ourselves able to catch up to the progress we'd made.

As Pelicor wills, luck was not with us that day. For no sooner had Ol' Peg Leg ambled off did we snag the largest beast of the sea I'd seen since our initial encounter with such a creature o so long ago. We fought with the great beast, employing all the teachings that the salty dog had learned us over the years, and finally were victorious over the monster. However, without holding tanks or a log, we were unable to keep the beast in captivity and, in a decision that rends my very soul to this day, were forced to release the beast back into the deep from whence it came, with no proof to its existence save our own testimony, and the damage that was wrought to our ship.



Of course, the comraderie one finds on a fishing barge is second to none, and we soon forgave the agregious error. As the trip wore on, the crew continued to maintain their closeness in the face of adveristy.





With our supplies and spirits renewed, the voyage soon turned out its first keeper, a fiesty fellow full of spit and mizzen. He fought hard, and long, but in the end we caught 'im!



Some of the new crew was excited to see their first haul. After as many years as I've seen, even the rough reels are part and parcel of the life, but to the new swabs their first catch was something that would stay with them the rest of their lives.





This young tallywhacker seemed particularly enamored with the idea of witnessing his first haul.



The ritual that goes along with the catching of your quarry is a long-standing part of life on the open ocean. Hard to think that one day, after the sea winds have tightened his eyes and the rigging has toughened his hands, this soft-hided boy will be taking part in the same rituals, laughing at the wonder of his own new swabs.

In the meantime, the knowledge of a successful catch had raised the spirits of the seasoned fishmongers aboard, and we shared a knowing and convivial smile at the joy the catch had brought us, and the prospect of more game to come.





Unfortunately, as with any long sea voyage, the isolation and the malnourishment can begin to affect your judgement. You can become a completely different person, unable to tell between good and bad, right and wrong. You could throw yourself overboard, never thinking for a moment that it might be the end of ye. Even with the closest friends you can find with ye there on the deck, men have gone mad, had perverted and warped their minds. I'd seen it happen before and, as the weeks wore on, I could sense that something was awry.



As soon as I'd start thinking things were improving, when we'd catch a fresh breeze or the bounty of the sea would be plentiful that day, something else would hint, subtly, that something wasn't quite right.



One day, taking stock of the heavy loading equipment we keep on board for the big hauls, I stumbled onto a scene the would make any seafaring man stop dead in his tracks. Suddenly, the strangeness with which my crew had been acting recently made a bit more sense.



Luckily, I caught onto the problem before the sea-relations could get out of hand. Stranger things have happened to men on the open water, but to allow them to continue would have surely ended in tragedy. After a stern talking to, and a hastily pieced-together explanation on their part concerning something called the "honey dip," the problem had been soundly dealt with, and the ship began to run as smoothly as it ever had.



And, thankfully, my crew had taken up its original fraternal bonds, once again enjoying the closeness never to be known by man on the land.



But not that close.



That's better.

...

As the voyage drew to a close, one of the mates brought up the subject of stopping at the port of Normton on the return trip. Occasionally, we weigh anchor in the little port-town to blow off some steam after a long stretch at sea and celebrate a successful catch. We had returned well ahead of our projected date, and so I issued a day-long furlow in Normton, a place known for its delicious edibles.



Imagine my surprise, after the not-to-be-mentioned discussion on the ship involving something called a "honey dip," which I understand can be read more about here, upon seeing this delightful child's amusement bearing such a coincidental monicker!



Truly, the Fates had been with us. Pelicor had been kind this journey, and the wonder of the discovery of the amusement, as well as the pride of a good haul, shown in the eyes of our fellow shipmates.



I finished my time in Normton by enjoying their famous Apple Pie A La Mode, a delicacy I try to enjoy whenever I come through the port. As it was brough to my table in one of the small eateries peppered throughout the hamlet, I gave thanks, in my private mind, for the life we have been given, for the life we have chosen, and for the lives we took in order to ensure a successful journey. For a life of adventure, a life of high seas and strong winds, this is no small price to pay.



So... where's the pie?

...

I'm still waitin' on that pie.