Spume offers a wealth of simple pleasures, from sea views and accordion-heavy portside ambience to endless supplies of rum and seafood. And for those wanting to delve deeper into weirdness, it delivers in big, Pirate-sized spadefuls. There are sunken wrecks crusted with corals, city-sized leviathans, and skeletons you can have dinner with, if you can bear their company.[3] So, whether you fancy a laid-back cruise through turquoise shallows, hunting treasure on specks of paradise, or braving storms and black powder on a sloop full of deceptively sane madmen, there’s a Pirate’s life out there waiting for you.
‘Can’t Miss’ Experiences
1 Battle a Kraken
We all remember that moment of childhood disappointment when we realised the sea monsters drawn on old maps were just tall stories. Prepare to leave all that disappointment behind in Spume! The monsters here are real. The Seven Seas teem with leviathans, of which the famous Kraken are the undisputed showstoppers. A lengthy dispute over marine stewardship policy between Skeleton Pirates and normal Pirates has made Kraken hunting more of a hot-button topic in recent years,[4] but there’s still no shortage of ‘squidbuster’ fleets heading out from the major ports, and they’re always looking for fresh deckhands.
2 Fight in a boarding action
We’ve all had the daydream: swinging from a rope with a flintlock in your hand and a cutlass between your teeth, hollering the naughtiest words you know as you prepare to cause havoc on the enemy’s deck. On the seas of Spume, this isn’t a daydream: it’s a fairly ordinary start to the week. Ship-to-ship combat is almost oppressively frequent along the major trade routes, and is still a thrill to behold, even with the strict conduct for nautical confrontations set out by the Pirate’s Code.[5]
3 Find buried treasure
Until recently, searching for treasure among Spume’s island chains was a fruitless business, as all the good stuff had been dug up. Thanks to canny amendments to the Pirate’s Code by Captain Bartholomew Threelegs, however, the booty game is back in business. Each year, Captains are mandated to bury between 12 and 40 per cent of their loot and then leave a map in a bizarre place for their rivals to find.[6] If you’re in search of treasure, why not try organising a tour with one of the following many certified Guide Captains listed in the Port Remittance visitor directory?
4 Go out on the lash
Spume’s land-to-sea ratio means the average Pirate lives at sea for nine tenths of the year – and living on a boat can be as claustrophobic as it is stressful. As such, when a ship stops in port and the crew get a chance to stretch their peg legs, things get hectic. The world’s astonishing variety of rums – from molasses-heavy headache juice to ice-clear spirits fit for royalty – are consumed by the gallon, and the accordions ring out in cacophonic chorus. A night of shore leave on Spume is either impossible to forget or impossible to remember – but never anything in between.
Region by Region
Just 4 per cent of Spume’s surface is dry land, spread across the ocean like raisins scattered by a miserly baker. Between these specks of sand and rainforest is water – hundreds of millions of square miles of it – divided up into the Seven Seas.[7]
1 The Yohos
This idyllic archipelago, with its white-sand beaches untroubled by hurricanes or raids, is where Pirates go to relax, retire and raise families. The Pirate’s Code forbids all but the most lighthearted violence here, and limits cursing to mild blasphemy, plus meaningless exclamations like ‘Son of a Dutchman!’ and ‘Hornswoggle me Nutmegs!’. There’s still some rough and tumble – the kids have to learn their trade somehow – but all in all, it’s a cheerful place, suitable for travellers who like their rum watered down to child strength,[8] and who prefer to remember holidays with fridge magnets rather than scar tissue.
2 Doldrum
In a realm where sail power is universal, Doldrum – that great patch of breezeless ocean at the centre of the map – is a place considered universally worthless. It sits there like a big patch of sick nobody wants to clear up, caked over with grumous scum and dotted with the bleached, creaking hulks of becalmed ships. Nevertheless, from the albatrosses who circle above to the slimy things that gather below the water to breed, it’s a top-tier destination for nature fans.[9]
3 The Stormwracks
In contrast to the Yohos, the Stormwracks are Spume on Hard Mode. These islands jut from the sea like rotten teeth, swathed in thorny jungle and brooding beneath the smoke of countless volcanoes. Their shores are encrusted with ramshackle port towns, where Captains take their crews to carouse, gamble and fight in the brief gaps between roaming the seas. While the Pirate’s Code still applies here, it’s definitely an adventure destination, where daylight robbery is considered a mandatory pursuit, and one grog too many can mean waking up naked, under indentured servitude to a glowering brute.[10]
TALKING LIKE A PIRATE
Pirates make talking the salt-stained patter of the high seas look easy, but remember they’ve had a lifetime of practice. It’s harder than it looks.[11] For newcomers, it’s best to start with the odd contemplative ‘arr’ if you really must get involved, before throwing in the odd ‘jimlad’ or ‘matey’. Intermediate learners may choose to start completely mangling all use of the verb ‘to be’, while experts can begin throwing whole phrases into conversation, such as these classics selected from the Landlubber’s Lexicon, a free pamphlet issued to tourists by the Council of Free Captains:
SPLICE YON GURNARDS, ME JIMMY-LIVER, FOR I’LL GLUP A SACK O’ NECKBLIGHT AVAST YE!
Do you want to go for a drink?
BY YONDER WOUNDS O’ NEPTUNE, I’LL BE GUTSLIT AFORE I BLITHER YE TO OLD HEMPEN JACK!
You can trust me.
SALT-TACK, BILLY-CLOTHS AND CLEAVE ME GRUNIONS, FOR TO SEE WILY JOHN TAR ON
