Originally written to announce the beginning of High Seas, our second “Universal You-Ship-We-Ship” program which ran during the winter of 2024/2025.

High Seas: The Beginning

Sunbeams glint off the rippling water like brilliant daggers, stabbing your eyes in a much more pleasing way than a literal eye-stabbing. You inhale deeply. The aromas of the beach tickle your brain like a loving yet irritatingly domineering older sibling. Salt. Kelp. Rotting… fish, probably. Yup, some dead thing with fins is definitely decomposing nearby, microbes slowly transmuting it into a pungent cocktail of greenhouse gasses and putrescine aimlessly rising to heaven. Even fish can fly, if only in death 🪽

A tremor from below disturbs the peace. Grains of sand vibrate across your toenails like droplets of water skittering across a hot pan. Suddenly a trio of tall wooden masts breach the surface of the water, followed by sails, followed by the wooden hull of a gargantuan 18th-century ship shooting out of the water and into the air like a nerf football released from the bottom of a pool. The ship cartoonishly hangs in the air before crashing into the sea with a terrific SPLOOSH, creating a tremendous wave that rushes to shore and knocks you over with the overwhelming force of a friendly but overeager and poorly-trained doberman. The whole shebang is over in seconds, leaving you stunned, sprawled on the beach, covered in seaweed. You raise your head to see a dinosaur with an eyepatch gazing down at you from the mighty prow of the ship. A raccoon with a spyglass has climbed the rigging for a better view of your sogginess.

“Aye, a landlubber!! Ahoy new friend!!!!” cries the raccoon. The dinosaur smiles and nods excitedly, fussing with her eyepatch to get it on the other eye, both of which seem to be intact. “I am Captain Trashbeard, and this is my First Mate Arrpheus!! Behold our schooner, Le Dumpstairè, the finest pirate vessel in the Caribbean, feared by all who sail these waters!! Come, come aboard!!!!”

Arrpheus drops a rope ladder from the gunwales, the final wooden step landing in the water below with a miniscule sploosh while dinosaur hooves above awkwardly and furiously beckon you forth. You pick yourself up off the beach, unsure what to do. This sort of thing doesn’t usually happen to you. You look down at your phone and open the calendar. It’s empty. You look up at the pirate ship. It’s full. Of possibilities. Metaphorically, anyway… you can’t actually see the interior. Unease gives way to resolve; fueled by a supernatural drive for adventure, your fear is left on the beach to watch you wade into the ocean, swim to the ladder, grasp the first rung, and climb aboard this maritime relic. And so began your new life as a pirate.