The maiden voyage of the Mary Belle 9/13

Fern watched as Jennifer Jane walked across the beach and entered the jungle.

“I suppose she’ll be alright,” said the captain.

“Oh yes, she’s always having adventures, some of them have become quite dangerous, but she has an uncanny knack of finding her way home safely. If anything she can’t handle does go wrong, then the witches have given her a safety spell to protect her. I’m far more worried about how we’re going to re-float the paddle steamer.”

Fern and the captain began to discuss ways and means of salvaging the steamboat. It was far too heavy to move by hand and lay too far up the beach to re-float on a high tide.

Eventually they decided that the only practical way was to put rollers under the hull and winch it down the beach using the anchored brig to pull against.

“All we have to do now is persuade the sailors to cut down some of these palm trees to use as rollers, sort out a way to get them under the boat, find out where Barnacle Bill has got to and then see if we can find our way home!”

They both laughed and went back to the brig to give the necessary orders for the crew to come ashore and start cutting trees.

The tree felling proved to be quite simple. The brig was equipped with a plentiful supply of wood working tools, which had been put aboard by the boatyard workers in case there was any trouble during the proving trip.

It was far more difficult to get the trunks under the hull. In the end they had to dig trenches under the boat to lay each roller and then remove the sand from the boat completely, until only the tree trunks supported it. The whole crew was exhausted by the time they’d got to this stage and everyone sat in the shade of the forest to have a well-earned rest.

“I think we’ve done enough for one day,” said the captain, “we’ll go back aboard the brig for a meal and a rest, then we can try and pull her off the beach on tomorrows high tide.”

There was a cheer from the tired goblins as the mate passed on the order and people struggled to their feet and began to walk back to the water’s edge. At this moment three dragons swept down over the trees and landed near the steamer. Jennifer Jane got down from the back of the largest and waved.

Fern went across the sand to meet them. “Well I never expected to see dragons here!” she said, “you really do have the most amazing knack of finding the unusual in the most unlikely places.”

“Megan can tell us how to get home,” said Jennifer Jane, “then she’s got to go back up the mountain to her friends.”

Fern laughed. “Ten year meeting is it then?” She looked rather strangely at Megan and Clarence, “you’d better give our position to the captain and then I expect you’ll be wanting to get back to the party.”

The mate and most of the salvage party went back to the brig. He soon returned with a large flat folder containing the ship’s charts. The captain opened the folder and sorted through the contents until Megan told him he’d got the right one. Finally he was satisfied that he knew where they were.

“Knowing our position is helpful, but we’ll have to navigate by dead reckoning, so let’s keep our fingers crossed that the weather stays fine!”

The dragons wished the crew of the Mary Belle the best of luck and flew back to their mountain party, while the goblins with Fern and Jennifer Jane, returned to supper and a well-earned rest aboard the brig.