I set sail with a few luxurious cloths from the outpost, frustrated I couldn't get a good animal run. After delivery I decide to waste some time before new voyages appear and sail over to crooks hollow to see what I can find on this falcore's ghost.
After searching the island for a night and finding nothing, I suddenly hear cannon fire on the ledge above me. I climb to a high rock and see a sloop sailing past. Something seems familiar about it and I realize it's the same sloop I first acquired after finding myself in these seas. My options were limited but I saved enough gold to buy what I called the "beer hull and sails".
As they get closer to crooks hollow, they seem to gain interest in my ship. I send out an "AHOY" as they slowly circle the island, but I see no reaction from the man standing with a cursed cannonball in his hand.
I scuttle my ship and watch them from a ledge as one investigates the area. Once he decided it was ok and started bringing some random items I found over to the beach, his crewmate joined him and they were attacked by skeletons. As soon as the first pirate went down, I aimed my sniper and missed my shot on the other. He started to hop away from the skeletons while eating something but my second shot was enough to take him out.
I sword lunged to their ship and dropped the sails ramming the beach. Then as it turned to sail away, they came at me again. I took them out and left their ship, giving them a chance to save it and giving me enough time to grab my emerald, my rowboat, and take off towards Stephens spoils.
They made a pass by the seapost almost like they were going to crash. I send out an "Ahoy again" as they go but see no response. Before I turn to take my mermaid, the beer sloop passes by going to crooks hollow and I decide to see if they will be friendly.
I pull up to the island near their ship to see them on the beach. I offer them a crate of tea I harpooned from some floating barrels. @RavenEightSix wore the outfit of the blackdog and adorned the day one patch over his eye. It was obvious he had been around for a long time but it seemed like he hadn't spent as much time at sea. Between the outfit, the eyepatch, and the ship itself, it was hard not to see a little of my younger self in him. That was the same outfit I came to the sea in, the same I still wore, and he manned the same ship I purchased for myself after coming here. His crewmate @reven33 seemed to be equally experienced and dressed in kraken clothing. They seemed to handle themselves well with their voyage and seemed eager to accumulate their wealth as many of us already have. So I decide to help them.
Once everything was loaded onto their ship, I told them I could provide them with the map to some skull and bone crates buried on shipwreck bay they could deliver. They agreed and we set off for what is one of my favorite islands in the seas.
They followed behind me as I paced around the island trying to pinpoint these crates. As I would find them, they would fight off any skeletons that might appear and take the crate back to the beach next to the ship. Once 10 were collected, we split them between the ships, and reven33 sailed with me on the Onyx Ghost to make the deliveries as raveneightsix took off with ol'beery.
Things went smooth with reven. One of the blue megs that resemble the hungering one appeared. It swam along our starboard side looking at me as I loaded the cannon and it seemed to change its mind and disappear. A skeleton sloop breached next to us but I raised the sails halfway and unloaded cannonballs in it until it went down. We collected the treasure and continued on with our deliveries. After stopping at the north star seapost and then the wild treasures store, we see raveneightsix sailing towards us. It wasn't long before I realized we never dug up any crates that needed to be delivered to Stephen's spoils. So I tell them I'll purchase another voyage and meet them back at shipwreck bay.
We collect another 10 crates and as we start to sort them, I see a sloop anchored off to the north of the island. I suggest we load up the crates quickly just in case the sloop decides to mess with us. I start harpooning the crates onto their ship and then head back to mine. Reven was already there with a single crate for Stephen's spoils and an odd crate for the wild treasures store. We set sail heading south as raveneightsix takes off to the east. After we turn in the one crate for Stephen's spoils, we head north towards the wild treasures and reven informs me that raveneightsix lost his ship to a coordinated attack from both a skeleton ship and a meg. We continue on and turn in our last crate before realizing a bear and bird sloop is heading our way. I sail down to galleons grave as they chase. As we turn around the island towards the dock, they cut across the north side of the island and fire a man onto the outpost. I try to communicate with one of the pirates as he swims towards our ship but he is unresponsive, so I decide to take off to avoid them. As we get closer to crooked masts, I notice they gave up on their chase, so I check the map and head north west towards raveneightsix who is already on his way towards us.
I tell reven to load the treasure in the rowboat and once we meet up with raveneightsix, I detach the rowboat from my ship and secure it to theirs before setting off for daggertooth outpost.
A sloop is parked by the docks at daggertooth and turns to sail away as we get close. They take a couple shots at us before turning around the north side of the outpost. Eventually they come back around and everyone opens fire. A keg they had stored below deck explodes seconds before their ship rams mine, and I decide to grab a keg I had stored to finish them off. I jump in the water, swim under their ship and release the keg. It floats up hitting their ship and kills me in the explosion but damages their ship beyond saving. By the time I make it back from the ferry of the damned, one of them had boarded my ship. Instead of fighting him, I abandon my ship to help protect reven and raveneightsix. Once I'm on their ship, the hostile pirate on mine tries to use my cannons to fire on us, so I scuttle, but as I exit the menu, I am shot and killed by a blunderbuss.
A couple of minutes go by before I find myself on crooked masts, then I start earning gold through my alliance giving me reassurance that raveneightsix and reven fought off the pirates successfully and were turning in the treasure from the skeleton sloop I had taken out earlier. I take this moment to rest and contemplate the voyage I had been on.
Some people didn't enjoy the voyages Duke had available for pirates. Some felt they weren't anything special as far as being unique or distinguishable from other voyages in the past. Digging up these crates and distributing them across the seas to the various seaposts was not something they would enjoy, but I liked them. Maybe the core aspects of it were nothing to be excited about but pirates are forgetting that it's not the voyage itself that is supposed to be the best part of any voyage, it's the adventure you find yourself on and the exciting moments you have especially when encountering other crews. These Shipwreck Bay voyages may be thought of by many as tedious, unexciting, uneventful, or just plain unenjoyable, but I look at shipwreck bay different now than I ever have before. The memories I've had from the experiences I went through will stay with me and they have given the island more of a personality that it didn't have before.
They are almost all gone now. The time for shipwreck bay is almost over as many of the skull and bone crates have been dug up and delivered. Another moment in the sea of thieves history that will come and go like many others, but it will always be remembered by those who were involved and cherished by those who had these positive memorable experiences.
The seas can be hostile and unforgiving but we pirates are resilient. We can always pick ourselves up when we fall and we can learn from our mistakes to improve our tactics. I don't hold it against a pirate for being bloodthirsty or thieving, it's the nature of the sea, but sometimes you find pirates that see the benefit of teamwork. They realize two crews are better than one and decide working together can be profitable for everyone. My voyage could have been one that was easily forgotten with no real moments worth noting, but coming across a crew I could work with and identify with turned my voyage into something I may not ever forget. These crew interactions can change a situation drastically. An every day uneventful voyage can become a fond memory with the addition of another crew, friendly or not. I've sailed the sea of thieves for over a year and I still find myself enjoying moments like this that one simply cannot predict. I salute the other crew I worked with and hope that other pirates will hear this tale and start to have a more positive outlook on even the worst situations the sea can throw at us.
