[color=f7941d]"Ah, Master Ishaan..."[/color] The carpenter had said, slightly out of breath, and covered head to toe in wood shavings. [color=f7941d]"Perhaps you're right, sah."[/color] He dusted himself slightly, then dispensed with it, in a motion which suggested 'what's the point?' He grabbed his mug, and a second, and stepped jovially toward the older man. [color=f7941d]"This time, the drams will come from my allowance!"[/color] That made their way to the galley, to the casks, and filled two healthy portions of dark, scented rum, and made their way topside. [color=f7941d]"How long you reckon they've been ashore?"[/color] He asked as much because there was time to accomplish more with the majority of the crew off the ship, as because now that he had taken a pause on work for the day, the less likely he was to go back to it later. 

He sat on the edge of the ship, legs dangling over the midships rails, a mug of rum in his hands, feeling the gentle sway of the ship in the late afternoon light. Looking out not over Nassau, but into the ocean, off the port side of the ship, watching as the sun dipped, orange and massive, toward the horizon line. There were clouds, but there would be no rain that night. He had worked only fourteen hours that day, a pittance by some days' tally. And now was the time to enjoy the fact that the ship was mostly quiet, mostly devoid of the ballyhoo that usually overtook its various spaces after the days' work had been done. [color=f7941d]"I love this place when it's quiet."[/color] 

The sun was warm on his shoulders, reminding him that he could still be working, if he chose. She was waiting. She always would be. He looked down at his split, calloused, raw hands. The rum felt good. There was work to do (there always was.) But today felt like a day he could afford to sit, for now. She wasn't going anywhere. And without extra hands, there was no pitching and gumming the keel, which was the job that truly needed doing. He had avoided telling the Bo'sun that she'd need to be beached sooner than later. Nobody wanted that. But it hadn't been done in months, and the last time hadn't been by choice, even so Danneil had made good use of the time, working at least 36 hours straight to gum and pitch as much of her belly as he could. Even so, it was near time. Danneil didn't fear much, but he feared telling any captain that their ship needed to be high and dry, and vulnerable for two days. 

That was a lifetime on the beach, in waters where 'friend' and 'hostile' were all relative terms, depending on how much food, rum and coin was in a rival's belly and pockets. The dreadlocked man saw Ishaan tilt the cup back. He simply poured another dram and held it out for the quartermaster.