Whoosh

Whoosh - ye gads shipmates, that canon ball came right over our heads and smashed through the mainsail. Ahoy there shipmates. We have just been swung round aft by a lean corvette of the French and she is headed out to sea west of the Fiji Islands. Must have been hiding somewhere. The Galapagos Islands maybe. Anyway it is off we go and all sails to the rigging. All hands on deck. Sound the drum. Musketeers in the crow's nest. But my word the Fiji Islands were shocking quiet me hearties. Not a soul in sight apart from the cannibals. The French have done a deal with the natives methinks and are making off the supplies which they have probably bought by selling their prisoners to the polynesians. Despicable lot the frenchies. Always opportunistic and flogging our boys for a mess of pottage. Our english boys don't have a chance in these hotblood markets. They will be supper tonight on the beach. How can we rescue these poor boys? Zat is ze question. Sacre bleu et mon Dieu.

Well actually

Well ahoy there shipmates and sailors and old seadogs. We have had to reroute down to the Fiji Islands but nothing doing down here. All very quiet and idyllic, and loads of unpopulated pacific atolls. Nothing doing.

Fare well

Ahoy there shipmates. Today we have finally rounded the Cape and we have rendezvous'd for the last time with the USS Lexington, a fast-rigger of a ship of the line from the US navy and one that has done a fair bit of service hunting pirates. We have exchanged supplies and science and information here at the Galapagos islands with her captain, Captain Fitzroy, and so it is fare thee well to all the young american sailors on board that once great ship and we have just pulled up the anchor to bid our goodbyes this happy morn at dawn. She was a rugged and controversial ship and a young one of a young nation, but a solid friend of General Cornwallis, and a great help with regard to the Napoleonic pirates round about these southern seas. A great pity to see her go. Splice the mainbrace me hearties, tis a time for science. Fare well captain Fitzroy and the Lexington.

Splice the mainbrace

Anyway it is all a storm in teacup, that's what our mad captain calls this huge swell in the sea, and the ship like me old golden galleon of once upon a time at Sleaford is being smashed from pillar to post. Ah ahoy there lads on the crow's nest, do ye see those rocks off the Cape before we are all shipwrecked. Tis a long way from Portsmouth here me mateys. And a long way down to the sea bed. Alas alas, we are almost shipwrecked on these seas, and this is high summer for goodness sake. Emperor penguins galore that look like Napoleon in his pomp, but even they are looking a bit run down and scruffy and shady now. May the gods of the ancient seadogs help us through this. I hope that Wellington gets better weather than this for his invasion of Portugal and Spain and the Pyrenees.  Ahoy there shipmates.

Whoopsy daisy

Whoosh - a wave straight over me face at the captain's wheel. The closer we get to Antarctica the more heaving the seas become what with all this tossing and turning of the ship. The waves are huge the sea deep and much fomenting. And the weather is positively fulminous. Shocking stuff all this heaving seawater. Impossible to find our bearings some days and the nights are terrible too. We know that we are by-passing the Patagonia coastline of Argentina and Chile but tis mighty hard to keep this rudder straight in such seas. The French have disappeared again over the horizon and are heading maybe round the Cape. Back home in Portugal, the old Iron Duke is closing on the French troops. These latter are an illdisciplined lot that are always stealing pigs, and dancing on the bars of the cities they bother and destroy - a right lot of brigands and charlatans and ransackers if every we saw any. Anyway the local peoples and villagers have no time for the French. Freeloaders and batmouthers at the best of times. We have not seen as worse as these. The corvettes the SS Veinticinco de mayo and the SS Armada del sol are up ahead, from French-controlled Argentina. Must be out of here - captain on the bridge.

Thus far

Well me shipmates, shivver me timbers, here we are on the southern runs into the Tierra del Fuego and the Cape of Good Hope, which we shall have to round at some point, though it is a perilous sea journey. We are approaching via South Georgia where the biggest waves in the world are to be seen. Still pursuing the SS Hadden de Merdre and his sister ship the SS Shields de Warden. A long way from the land battles between Wellington and Napoleon this weather back in Europe on the Iberian peninsular. Wellington has landed some troops in Portugal, our oldest ally, and is busy setting upon the French Imperial Guard there. General Nuno de Bras is the leading general of the Portuguese Army. Doing well to contain Napoleon's heavy cavalry regiments. These tend to get stuck in mud.

Shinny up the rigging

The waters down here at this time of year are warmer than usual, a case of letting go in the calmer waters of the South Atlantic, much like the drink-sotten crew of the SS Venereale on their feast days of rum and bacardi and coke come 1st December each year. Wine and women and chaos for a whole day as the entire ship drops anchor usually in the West Indies and there lets go of all inhibitions. There is never an excuse needed for a party on board the SS Venereale. Capt Firestarter of the Old Nick, who is right up the charlies of the Venice Republic and its Navy, knows a good bargain when he sees one, no work, no tutoring, no tying of knots unless it is a clever double stitch in two directions, and lots of partying, lots of rum, and lots of girlie crewboys on board the ship. Oh yes there is nothing so pleasant as an all-nighter on those ships. La malaise republicenne. Capt Coc and Capt BC, known as the Couple on the the deck, or as 2 Jack Sparrows of the Venetian Republic, have lots of time for the crew, and there are lots of young blonde cabin boys carrying the drinks in and out of their Captain's burgundy carpeted Salonetta. Very nice indeed. The Venereale never sets sail though from the Bahamas and they never attend their lectures in Venice at the Navel Academy because the crew is perpetually drunk.