Avast there, ye knock-kneed scallywaggs!

Ye’ve reached the Quarterdeck, to be sure.This is where yer Captain thunders away on subjects that strike his fancy, passes the scuttlebutt on current conspiracies, or ruminates on a life spent under the black flag. Aye, be bub.

Discovery of The Frogg

Thursday November 2, 2006

Part I of Discovery of the Frogg

Part I – In Which We Run Aground

T’aint nothing more dangerous than a squall mate. Now that I be a captain, I keep them lifelines ready for the string at all times. Them ocean storms, ye see, they can puff up out of nowheres and gulp ye down. Even the most steadfast of sealegs will quake in their boots when the waves hoist ye three cables aloft and spit ye down the other side.

T’was just such a tempest that we found ourselves in… somewhere south of here… when we first clapped our eyes on the ragged coastline of Frogg Island. Like a crooked smile it was. Offering it’s hand with one behind it’s back.

Now, I tell you true, we weren’t lost friends. We were just, well, we were confused for a couple of weeks. I was but Third Mate of the Perrywinkle, still wet behind me ears, and I had me hands full keeping the lash on the cargo. I had no designs on navy’gation and nothing to say but “Aye aye sir.” When the weather deck splintered and the bossun piped us to stations, I had no more designs on a captain’s title than a goose does for a crown. I merely did me duty, until we ran aground on the hidden teeth of that cove, and the belly of our old Junk was torn away like meat from a bone.

When I was a lad, me mother took me to see a sym’pony play in Portsoy. Thuds and booms and wailing horns that I could feel in my guts as much as I could hear. The ocean, she sang that way when we smashed up against the rocks of Frogg Island, and me guts riggled and riled as she howled about us.

We did not sleep that night. We wrapped ourselves in any bit of sail or tangled line we could scrape and we held fast. In the dark, we called to each other between gasps of wind, but as the storm wore on, them voices grew few. We could only wait for daybreak to show us what was left. It would have been easy to let my weary fingers slip and give myself over to the despair of the squall.

Once, in the night, the wind dropped to a whisper and we could hear Mr. Gilly singing, bold as brass, “On Cobblestone Weir”.

I’ll say this, Gilly ties a better half-hitch than he pitches a note, but truth be told, Gilly’s brave little tune on the damp night air gave me the strength to wait for the sun.

November 2006: 02: Discovery of The Frogg
July 2006: 26: Ahoy... 1... 2...