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Mr. Gibbs was still sitting on the opposite side of the dinghy. He tilted his secret rum bottle to and fro, finding strange amusement in watching the liquid slosh around. He had the vaguest feeling of being in the bottle, sloshed around... drowning in his best friend...

Something hard and cold clunked him in the head. In a painful kind of way. He sat up with a grunt and stared at the offending... empty bottle. He must have fallen asleep on the bottle. But where in the name of mother and child had the rest of the rum gone...?

Jack stole it.

Righteously indignant, Gibbs whirled around. His bleary gaze settled on a certain dreadlock-ish head. Culprit found. With all the coordination of a flipperless sea turtle, he lurched across the dinghy. Suddenly he stopped short. "A map," he breathed, as though he'd never seen one before. Wide-eyed, he peered over Sparrow's shoulder at the submerged flashes of wonderful color. He hadn't seen anything this exciting in a full five hours. "It wouldn't... uh... lead to any items of considerable value, now would it?"

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Captain Barbossa sat alone in his cabin, silently contemplating the bright green apple on the table before him. Picking it up with one hand, he began absently tossing it back and forth while he considered his options. The charts were gone, courtesy of Jack Sparrow. And now the crew knew, which was not exactly Jack's fault, but Barbossa figured there was no harm in blaming him for it anyway. And because the charts were gone and the crew knew, Barbossa found himself quite at a loss concerning what to do next. He couldn't continue pursuing the Fountain of Youth because he had no bearing, and he couldn't pretend that a brief stop in Tortuga had been the plan all along because the crew knew it wasn't. Yet he was too proud to admit defeat yet, nor was he particularly keen on exposing himself to the very real possibility of mutiny. Unlike Sparrow, he knew that some things simply couldn't be shared with the crew- especially when it might make them question one's own ability to lead.

A high-pitched screech announced Jack's presence in the cabin. The monkey jumped up onto the table, clutching a small wooden ball -graciously provided by Ragetti as a substitute for his new eye- in his tiny paws. Tilting his head to the side, Jack extended the ball toward his master and chattered curiously. Barbossa smirked slightly, then accepted the toy and halfheartedly tossed it across the cabin for the monkey to chase. At least one individual on this ship remained easy to please.

Marty had been going back and forth on The Pearl, working hard at everything he did. Yet... he didn't feel very pleased with what he was doing. He felt that there was no real purpose to doing all of this if there were no charts. He sighed deeply and stopped what he was doing. He shook his head and started walking to Captain Barbossa's cabin. He knocked on the door and waited for Barbossa to summon him in.

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Siggy set made by the amazing Lembas!

Lee sighed as he held onto the rigging of the ship, looking out into the sea. "We might as well either go find Sparrow or find another route." He said sourly. Why did Jack always do that to them.

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Just became a college freshman; be on sparingly

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Lee looked around for Barbossa. He wondered what the order's where and what Barbossa's plan were.

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Just became a college freshman; be on sparingly

Gibbs had been eagerly peering over Jack's shoulder the entire time. He had to admit - his daft captain was a charmer. Splash some water around, rub the little map this way and that, and - poof! Flashy colors. Not only that, but Jack could interpret Spanish! Imagine that!

Gibbs put a hand to his aching head. What was he thinking? His stomach was complaining, and for some reason his skull felt as though the Kraken had sat on it. Oh, as Sparrow always said, buggeh that. Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me...

Eh what? Right. Keep weather eye on horizon... "Aye, capt'n." He waved his hand in what just barely passed for a salute. He lurched back to his side of the dinghy and plopped down. Keep weather eye on horizon. Keep weather eye on...

What was that? Squinting against the sunset, he leaned forward and nearly capsized the boat. There it was again. So it hadn't been the rum, after all. He found the puny spyglass after a bit of fishing in his pockets. He raised it to his eye. A blurry patch of brown and green swam on the horizon. Well, that was interesting. It couldn't be a ship, and it certainly wasn't a dolphin, so that must mean...

Gibbs slapped himself. The rum and the sun must have gotten to his head. Thinking a little clearer now, he glanced back at Jack. "Land ho, capt'n."

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Upon pondering the fragile state of his immortal soul - which he figured was probably made all the more uncertain by his half-empty rum bottle - Ragetti found himself absently listing the objects he could see on the relatively empty horizon.

Seagull. Floating remnant of barrel. Dinghy. Faint waterspout.

Dinghy?

Ragetti blinked several times, looked suspiciously down at the rum bottle, and disappeared belowdecks. "Er, er, Cap'n Barbossa, sir," he said, peering around the door to check that said Captain was not in a black mood that could result in a situation less than ideal for Ragetti's fragile immortal soul, "there 'pears to be a vessel off starboard."

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Jake walked over to were Ragetti was standing and looked out to the sea were he had indacated, "Thats odd, there is a dinghy." Who would be in a dinghy in the middle of the sea?

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I was Nymphadora Tonks

Pintel followed Ragetti eagerly, but just as his best mate had, he had grown shy of the Captain. They never were on great terms, Pintel, Barbossa, and Jack...not since the...Captain possition agruement.

Lee climbed down from the riggings and dropped beside Jack, nodding. "There seem to be a lot of odd things these days at sea."

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Just became a college freshman; be on sparingly

Barbossa grudgingly followed Ragetti up to the quarterdeck. It had been his experience that the one-eyed pirate's definition of a significant discovery often differed greatly from his own, but anything was an improvement at the moment. Even if it was only a small ship, the crew's morale would benefit from a bit of old-fashioned plundering. Upon reaching the quarterdeck, Barbossa followed Ragetti's gaze and immediately had to resist the urge to groan. It was a dinghy. Rolling his eyes, he proceeded to pull out his spyglass, if only to humor the worthless lookout. Aye, that was definitely a dinghy. A tiny, sinking, worthless dinghy. A dinghy...bearing a flag? A Jolly Roger, at that-- or at least, some variation thereof. And on the flag was... a red sparrow.

Barbossa frowned, considering the implications of this. He hadn't thought even Sparrow to be daft enough to put out to sea in such a worthless vessel, but it wouldn't be the first time the eccentric pirate had surprised him with an entirely new degree of stupidity. Assuming the passenger of the boat was, indeed, Sparrow. If it was, all the better for him. He'd regain the charts and continue the voyage as if nothing had ever happened. If it wasn't...well, he supposed they could always just kill the cur and put him out of his misery.

"Mr. Cotton!" he ordered. "Alter course an' bring us closer."

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