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RogerDodger
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Knot's Nautical Chronicles
Captain’s Log, Seadate 13.6
Yes, I’m a bit of a nerd. But who are you to deny me the small amount of pleasure I get from making a Dragonfire reference? Actually, I don’t really care who you are, as long as you exist. Because if you’re reading this, that means that even if I don’t survive, at least some record of what happened to me will.
I guess now’s as good of a time as any to explain what happened to me.
I am Marked Knots. I was a sailor on the E.S.S. Enyalius. I wasn’t a particularly important sailor, mind you. In fact, I was about as far away from the position of Captain as you could be without being a stowaway. But since I am currently the only one on this boat, I think that makes me captain by default. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
We sailed out from Los Pegasus just under two weeks ago. We were going to sail west from there into the South Luna Ocean, following the southern coast of the Undiscovered West, in order to hopefully make it a bit less undiscovered.
You might think that exploring new lands sounds exciting. I sure did. That’s why I took this job. But it turns out that it’s pretty boring. At least the sailing part is. Maybe things would have been more interesting if we had gotten father and had found something interesting to investigate on land, but we never really had the chance for that. I think that Wind Rose had some fun updating our maps with some new mountains and shorelines, but for the rest of us, it was just sailing as usual.
But I was okay with that. It wasn’t the exciting job I was hoping for, but I wouldn’t have become a sailor if I didn’t enjoy it.
Everything was going fine until last night. I was enjoying some free time by playing cards with some of the other sailors when everything went to Tartarus. At some point while I was below deck, a large storm had formed. And storms on the open sea aren’t like storms in Equestria. These storms aren’t carefully crafted by pegasi. They’re wild and uncontrollable. Maybe you’ve heard of the Everfree Forest and its wild weather. Well I grew up in Ponyville, so I know what I’m talking about when I say that this storm was worse than anything that forest ever produced. And when I say that it was uncontrollable, I mean it. I’m an earth pony, so I’m no expert on how pegasus magic and how they control the weather, but every sailor needs to have some knowledge of winds and weather, and most sailors are pegasi, so I’ve picked up some things just by hanging around them for long enough.
The point is, even with all the pegasi we had on board, there was nothing we could do about that monster of a storm. Not that we didn’t try. Every spare pegasus was up there doing their best to calm the storm, while everypony else was trying to keep the ship together. But in the end, it was all for naught. Despite all of our most valiant efforts, a mast snapped, the ship started to capsize, and the captain ordered us all to abandon ship.
That was when I learned why so many sailors are pegasi. I’d always thought that it was because of the weather manipulation and the fact that they’re all taught about wind and weather before they can even walk. But now I’m pretty sure that the real reason is that it makes it much easier to evacuate when something goes catastrophically wrong.
The shore was still mostly in sight at that point, so it wasn’t hard for the pegasi in the crew to grab the unicorns and earth ponies and carry them to safety.
At least, that’s what I assume happened. Remember how I said that one of our masts snapped? Well, guess where it landed.
That’s right. It landed right on top of me.
Fortunately, it didn’t kill me. Unfortunately, it did look like it killed me. I saw the look on Beam Wind’s face just before the mast hit me. I know he thinks I’m dead. They all think I’m dead. But we earth ponies are more resilient than the other races sometimes realize, and I come from particularly hardy stock. So instead of dieing, I was knocked unconscious for a bit, and stuck in such a way that nopony could check if I was still alive anyway.
By the time I regained consciousness, the last of the pegasi were just barely in sight, and the ship was nearly sunk. Luckily, the shifting of the ship had caused the mast to roll off of me, so I was able to move, though it was painful.
Even though almost all of the crew were pegasi, the ship was still equipped with some lifeboats, just as an added safety precaution. I was able to limp to one of them and release it from the ship, mere minutes before the whole thing sank.
I don’t know how long the storm lasted after that, but it felt like hours. The winds and the waves did all they could to drag me down to the depths of the ocean, but I held strong.
When the storm finally dissipated, I thought I was finally safe. Then I took a look around.
All around me was open ocean. There was no sign of the coast or the remains of the ship. It seemed that the storm had tossed me far into the ocean, but I had no idea how far or in what direction. I had no idea where I was, and nopony even knew to look for me.
So I did what I always do when I’m exhausted, injured, and facing certain death: I went to sleep.
I’m not entirely sure how late it was when I went to sleep, but it was early in the afternoon when I finally woke back up. I searched through the supplies for some food, ate a bit, and decided to start keeping a log of what happened to me. Either I somehow survive and get rich with a book deal, or I die and someone else will find this log and get rich with a book deal. And if you’re that lucky son of a diamond dog, you’d better at least name your first kid after me.
That’s enough writing for today. I’ve got to look into my supplies and figure out how I’m going to survive.
Captain’s Log, Seadate 14.35
Okay, things don’t seem as bad as I first thought.
These lifeboats are stocked surprisingly well. They’re designed to carry six ponies, with enough food to last for four days. When 90% of your sailors are pegasi, there tends not to be much of a reason to have more than that. The chances of anypony being stranded in a lifeboat for longer than that are probably a million to one. And here I am, the one. But since I am just one pony, that gives me 24 days of food. If I decide to be extra safe, I could cut back to three-quarters rations and last for 32, but 24 should be plenty of time for me to reach land, right? What could possibly go wrong?
...Yeah, I should probably play it safe.
Water is even less of a problem. I’m surrounded by nothing but water, after all. Now I know that some of you clever ponies are about to tell me I’m an idiot and I can’t drink salt water, but that’s only because you aren’t sailors and don’t know about the Magical Evaporation-Condensation Desalinators, or MECDs, that every ship has these days. I don’t know how exactly they work—Princess Twilight created them with some sort of mix of unicorn and pegasus magic—but all that matters is that salt water goes in one end, some magic happens, and fresh water comes out the other end. This lifeboat has a smaller version of the one that was on the ship, and it should have no problem keeping me hydrated.
The boat’s emergency supplies also contain some magical flares, a first aid kit—which was very useful for recovering from being crushed by a mast, by the way—a compass, six oars, some blankets, life vests, and this book. I’m not entirely sure why a blank, magically-waterproofed book was in there with the rest of the supplies, but I guess they wanted ponies like me to keepdiaries logs of what happens to us. I have a suspicion that Princess Twilight might be behind this too. But at least it gives me something to do other than rowing.
Speaking of rowing, I should probably get moving.
Captain’s Log, Seadate 14.7
I am reversing my decision to only eat three-quarters rations. Do you realize how hungry you get after rowing for a few hours. And I doubt I’ll be doing much of anything but rowing, sleeping, and writing in here until I die or find land.
I’ve decided to row north. I have no idea where in the South Luna Sea I am, but north seems like the best option for me. I’m about two weeks’ worth of sailing from any land to the east, but I’m rowing, not sailing. My special talent happens to involve measuring the speeds of ships, so I know for a fact that the E.S.S. Enyalius traveled at an average speed of 6.2 knots. I can row at an average speed of 2.4 knots, but I can’t row 24 hours a day. Even if I can keep that speed up for 16 hours and then sleep for eight, that gives me an average speed of 1.6 knots for the entire day. At that speed, I could reach land in 46 days, but I will have starved by then. I might be able to cut a day or two off of that if the storm blew me far enough to reach the peninsula south of Los Pegasus, but that would still be too long. And even if I did make it to land, I would probably end up in the middle of the San Palomino Desert, which wouldn’t necessarily be a huge improvement for me.
To the west and south are nothing but oceans, as far as we know, so that just leaves heading north. I’ll end up in the middle of the undiscovered west, but at least I’ll be on land. If I stay near the coast there, I’ll have a steady supply of water from the ocean, and I should be able to find food, or at least graze, in the nearby forests.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. When the storm hit, we weren’t more than a few hours of slow rowing away from the coast. But as I’ve mentioned before, I have no idea how far south the storm pushed me or where I’ve drifted while sleeping. So it could easily take me days to reach shore. But with at least three weeks of food here, I should be fine.
Of course, I could get lucky and spot a passing pegasus in the distance. Then all it will take is a flare or two and I’ll be safe. But I am in basically unexplored waters right now, so that’s not something I’ll be counting on.
Now I think I’ll go row for a few more hours before turning in for the night.
Captain’s Log, Seadate 15.9
I did nothing but row today. No land in sight.
Captain’s Log, Seadate 16.9
I did nothing but row today. Still no land in sight.
Captain’s Log, Seadate 17.9
Still nothing but rowing and water. By Celestia’s hooves, I’m bored. And tired. But mostly bored.
Captain’s Log, Seadate 18.9
Still rowing, still bored. And I hate being bored. I’ve tried entertaining myself by singing songs. Unfortunately, I’ve never been particularly good at carrying a tune. I miss Sea Shanty. Now there’s a pony can lead a song. He’s always got something for the crew to sing. I, on the other hoof, have come up with 78 new verses of “What Shall We Do with a Drunken Sailor?”
...You don’t want to hear them. Trust me.
Captain’s Log, Seadate 19.8
I take back what I said about being bored. Boredom is good. Boredom means nothing is going wrong. Today was not boring.
Today, there was another storm. It wasn’t as bad as the one that got me in this situation, but it was bad enough to knock me out of the boat. Luckily, I was able to pull myself back into it, but I lost the two oars I’ve been using in the process. I still have four more, but I’ll have to be more careful with them in the future. I’ll miss those oars. They were almost like friends to me. I named them “Drunken” and “Sailor.” I am not a creative pony.
Fortunately, the rest of my supplies were safely stored away, so nothing else was lost. Except for time. Not only did I miss an entire day of rowing, but I’m not sure how far this storm tossed me, or even which direction it tossed me in. I just hope it didn’t set me back too far.
In other news, I’ve been in this boat for a week now. These storms aren’t a weekly thing here, are they? That would be weird. Did we sail through a storm two weeks ago? I remember one sometime in our first week at sea, but I don’t remember which day. Just in case, my new goal is to get back to shore before this time next week.
Captain’s Log, Seadate 20.9
More rowing today. Rowing and happy boredom.
Captain’s Log, Seadate 21.7
Why couldn’t today be boring?
I saw something in the water today. I have no idea what it was. All I saw was a huge shadow passing underneath my boat.
All I can think of now are all the stories I’ve ever heard about monsters that live in the water.
Sharks.
Sirens.
Kelpies.
Leviathans.
Krakens.
Scylla
Charybdis.
Jörmungandr.
Seaponies.
Which of them are real? Are any of them? Are all of them? The stories must be based on something, right? And something is in the water here. I don’t know what it is, and I don’t want to find out.
I don’t see it anymore, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still around here somewhere. Watching me. Waiting.
I don’t think I’ll sleep tonight.
Captain’s Log, Seadate 22.6
I didn’t sleep last night.
I rowed for a few hours today, and it’s been blessedly boring. I think I’ll turn in early tonight.
Captain’s Log, Seadate 23.8
Another beautiful boring day.
It looks like a storm might be forming behind me, but hopefully it won’t cause any trouble.
I think my pen is running out of ink. This is not a supply I thought to check. I fear this will be my last entry. If you’re reading this, either I’m dead and someone found this book floating in the ocean, or I survived, made it home, published it, and became rich. I think you know which it was.
But I don’t.
I hope it was the good one.
Yes, I’m a bit of a nerd. But who are you to deny me the small amount of pleasure I get from making a Dragonfire reference? Actually, I don’t really care who you are, as long as you exist. Because if you’re reading this, that means that even if I don’t survive, at least some record of what happened to me will.
I guess now’s as good of a time as any to explain what happened to me.
I am Marked Knots. I was a sailor on the E.S.S. Enyalius. I wasn’t a particularly important sailor, mind you. In fact, I was about as far away from the position of Captain as you could be without being a stowaway. But since I am currently the only one on this boat, I think that makes me captain by default. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
We sailed out from Los Pegasus just under two weeks ago. We were going to sail west from there into the South Luna Ocean, following the southern coast of the Undiscovered West, in order to hopefully make it a bit less undiscovered.
You might think that exploring new lands sounds exciting. I sure did. That’s why I took this job. But it turns out that it’s pretty boring. At least the sailing part is. Maybe things would have been more interesting if we had gotten father and had found something interesting to investigate on land, but we never really had the chance for that. I think that Wind Rose had some fun updating our maps with some new mountains and shorelines, but for the rest of us, it was just sailing as usual.
But I was okay with that. It wasn’t the exciting job I was hoping for, but I wouldn’t have become a sailor if I didn’t enjoy it.
Everything was going fine until last night. I was enjoying some free time by playing cards with some of the other sailors when everything went to Tartarus. At some point while I was below deck, a large storm had formed. And storms on the open sea aren’t like storms in Equestria. These storms aren’t carefully crafted by pegasi. They’re wild and uncontrollable. Maybe you’ve heard of the Everfree Forest and its wild weather. Well I grew up in Ponyville, so I know what I’m talking about when I say that this storm was worse than anything that forest ever produced. And when I say that it was uncontrollable, I mean it. I’m an earth pony, so I’m no expert on how pegasus magic and how they control the weather, but every sailor needs to have some knowledge of winds and weather, and most sailors are pegasi, so I’ve picked up some things just by hanging around them for long enough.
The point is, even with all the pegasi we had on board, there was nothing we could do about that monster of a storm. Not that we didn’t try. Every spare pegasus was up there doing their best to calm the storm, while everypony else was trying to keep the ship together. But in the end, it was all for naught. Despite all of our most valiant efforts, a mast snapped, the ship started to capsize, and the captain ordered us all to abandon ship.
That was when I learned why so many sailors are pegasi. I’d always thought that it was because of the weather manipulation and the fact that they’re all taught about wind and weather before they can even walk. But now I’m pretty sure that the real reason is that it makes it much easier to evacuate when something goes catastrophically wrong.
The shore was still mostly in sight at that point, so it wasn’t hard for the pegasi in the crew to grab the unicorns and earth ponies and carry them to safety.
At least, that’s what I assume happened. Remember how I said that one of our masts snapped? Well, guess where it landed.
That’s right. It landed right on top of me.
Fortunately, it didn’t kill me. Unfortunately, it did look like it killed me. I saw the look on Beam Wind’s face just before the mast hit me. I know he thinks I’m dead. They all think I’m dead. But we earth ponies are more resilient than the other races sometimes realize, and I come from particularly hardy stock. So instead of dieing, I was knocked unconscious for a bit, and stuck in such a way that nopony could check if I was still alive anyway.
By the time I regained consciousness, the last of the pegasi were just barely in sight, and the ship was nearly sunk. Luckily, the shifting of the ship had caused the mast to roll off of me, so I was able to move, though it was painful.
Even though almost all of the crew were pegasi, the ship was still equipped with some lifeboats, just as an added safety precaution. I was able to limp to one of them and release it from the ship, mere minutes before the whole thing sank.
I don’t know how long the storm lasted after that, but it felt like hours. The winds and the waves did all they could to drag me down to the depths of the ocean, but I held strong.
When the storm finally dissipated, I thought I was finally safe. Then I took a look around.
All around me was open ocean. There was no sign of the coast or the remains of the ship. It seemed that the storm had tossed me far into the ocean, but I had no idea how far or in what direction. I had no idea where I was, and nopony even knew to look for me.
So I did what I always do when I’m exhausted, injured, and facing certain death: I went to sleep.
I’m not entirely sure how late it was when I went to sleep, but it was early in the afternoon when I finally woke back up. I searched through the supplies for some food, ate a bit, and decided to start keeping a log of what happened to me. Either I somehow survive and get rich with a book deal, or I die and someone else will find this log and get rich with a book deal. And if you’re that lucky son of a diamond dog, you’d better at least name your first kid after me.
That’s enough writing for today. I’ve got to look into my supplies and figure out how I’m going to survive.
Captain’s Log, Seadate 14.35
Okay, things don’t seem as bad as I first thought.
These lifeboats are stocked surprisingly well. They’re designed to carry six ponies, with enough food to last for four days. When 90% of your sailors are pegasi, there tends not to be much of a reason to have more than that. The chances of anypony being stranded in a lifeboat for longer than that are probably a million to one. And here I am, the one. But since I am just one pony, that gives me 24 days of food. If I decide to be extra safe, I could cut back to three-quarters rations and last for 32, but 24 should be plenty of time for me to reach land, right? What could possibly go wrong?
...Yeah, I should probably play it safe.
Water is even less of a problem. I’m surrounded by nothing but water, after all. Now I know that some of you clever ponies are about to tell me I’m an idiot and I can’t drink salt water, but that’s only because you aren’t sailors and don’t know about the Magical Evaporation-Condensation Desalinators, or MECDs, that every ship has these days. I don’t know how exactly they work—Princess Twilight created them with some sort of mix of unicorn and pegasus magic—but all that matters is that salt water goes in one end, some magic happens, and fresh water comes out the other end. This lifeboat has a smaller version of the one that was on the ship, and it should have no problem keeping me hydrated.
The boat’s emergency supplies also contain some magical flares, a first aid kit—which was very useful for recovering from being crushed by a mast, by the way—a compass, six oars, some blankets, life vests, and this book. I’m not entirely sure why a blank, magically-waterproofed book was in there with the rest of the supplies, but I guess they wanted ponies like me to keep
Speaking of rowing, I should probably get moving.
Captain’s Log, Seadate 14.7
I am reversing my decision to only eat three-quarters rations. Do you realize how hungry you get after rowing for a few hours. And I doubt I’ll be doing much of anything but rowing, sleeping, and writing in here until I die or find land.
I’ve decided to row north. I have no idea where in the South Luna Sea I am, but north seems like the best option for me. I’m about two weeks’ worth of sailing from any land to the east, but I’m rowing, not sailing. My special talent happens to involve measuring the speeds of ships, so I know for a fact that the E.S.S. Enyalius traveled at an average speed of 6.2 knots. I can row at an average speed of 2.4 knots, but I can’t row 24 hours a day. Even if I can keep that speed up for 16 hours and then sleep for eight, that gives me an average speed of 1.6 knots for the entire day. At that speed, I could reach land in 46 days, but I will have starved by then. I might be able to cut a day or two off of that if the storm blew me far enough to reach the peninsula south of Los Pegasus, but that would still be too long. And even if I did make it to land, I would probably end up in the middle of the San Palomino Desert, which wouldn’t necessarily be a huge improvement for me.
To the west and south are nothing but oceans, as far as we know, so that just leaves heading north. I’ll end up in the middle of the undiscovered west, but at least I’ll be on land. If I stay near the coast there, I’ll have a steady supply of water from the ocean, and I should be able to find food, or at least graze, in the nearby forests.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. When the storm hit, we weren’t more than a few hours of slow rowing away from the coast. But as I’ve mentioned before, I have no idea how far south the storm pushed me or where I’ve drifted while sleeping. So it could easily take me days to reach shore. But with at least three weeks of food here, I should be fine.
Of course, I could get lucky and spot a passing pegasus in the distance. Then all it will take is a flare or two and I’ll be safe. But I am in basically unexplored waters right now, so that’s not something I’ll be counting on.
Now I think I’ll go row for a few more hours before turning in for the night.
Captain’s Log, Seadate 15.9
I did nothing but row today. No land in sight.
Captain’s Log, Seadate 16.9
I did nothing but row today. Still no land in sight.
Captain’s Log, Seadate 17.9
Still nothing but rowing and water. By Celestia’s hooves, I’m bored. And tired. But mostly bored.
Captain’s Log, Seadate 18.9
Still rowing, still bored. And I hate being bored. I’ve tried entertaining myself by singing songs. Unfortunately, I’ve never been particularly good at carrying a tune. I miss Sea Shanty. Now there’s a pony can lead a song. He’s always got something for the crew to sing. I, on the other hoof, have come up with 78 new verses of “What Shall We Do with a Drunken Sailor?”
...You don’t want to hear them. Trust me.
Captain’s Log, Seadate 19.8
I take back what I said about being bored. Boredom is good. Boredom means nothing is going wrong. Today was not boring.
Today, there was another storm. It wasn’t as bad as the one that got me in this situation, but it was bad enough to knock me out of the boat. Luckily, I was able to pull myself back into it, but I lost the two oars I’ve been using in the process. I still have four more, but I’ll have to be more careful with them in the future. I’ll miss those oars. They were almost like friends to me. I named them “Drunken” and “Sailor.” I am not a creative pony.
Fortunately, the rest of my supplies were safely stored away, so nothing else was lost. Except for time. Not only did I miss an entire day of rowing, but I’m not sure how far this storm tossed me, or even which direction it tossed me in. I just hope it didn’t set me back too far.
In other news, I’ve been in this boat for a week now. These storms aren’t a weekly thing here, are they? That would be weird. Did we sail through a storm two weeks ago? I remember one sometime in our first week at sea, but I don’t remember which day. Just in case, my new goal is to get back to shore before this time next week.
Captain’s Log, Seadate 20.9
More rowing today. Rowing and happy boredom.
Captain’s Log, Seadate 21.7
Why couldn’t today be boring?
I saw something in the water today. I have no idea what it was. All I saw was a huge shadow passing underneath my boat.
All I can think of now are all the stories I’ve ever heard about monsters that live in the water.
Sharks.
Sirens.
Kelpies.
Leviathans.
Krakens.
Scylla
Charybdis.
Jörmungandr.
Seaponies.
Which of them are real? Are any of them? Are all of them? The stories must be based on something, right? And something is in the water here. I don’t know what it is, and I don’t want to find out.
I don’t see it anymore, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still around here somewhere. Watching me. Waiting.
I don’t think I’ll sleep tonight.
Captain’s Log, Seadate 22.6
I didn’t sleep last night.
I rowed for a few hours today, and it’s been blessedly boring. I think I’ll turn in early tonight.
Captain’s Log, Seadate 23.8
Another beautiful boring day.
It looks like a storm might be forming behind me, but hopefully it won’t cause any trouble.
I think my pen is running out of ink. This is not a supply I thought to check. I fear this will be my last entry. If you’re reading this, either I’m dead and someone found this book floating in the ocean, or I survived, made it home, published it, and became rich. I think you know which it was.
But I don’t.
I hope it was the good one.