Sunburn and Sea Breeze

Friday. Hot enough to fry an egg on the captain’s hat, if he would ever take it off. The prisoners come in pink from the beach and go out pinker from the excitement.

One of today’s crew asked whether the shanty would be full of smoke, the way pirate dens are in the pictures. Not on my watch. There is no smoke, no fog and no haze in here. The only cloud in the shanty is the captain’s temper, and he is mostly at sea.

Another asked, a bit nervously, whether there were any tight spaces. None. You stand up the whole time and the walls stay where they are. I built them; I would know. The roomiest jail in the Caribbean, and the captain calls it cosy.

The captain has been staring at charts of Queensland since last week. The galleon is due up there in the first half of this year. Nobody has said a word about the shanty going too, and I have learned not to pack until somebody does.

Drank a coconut at lunch. Did not lie to anybody about my scar all day. A personal best.