Hello and greetings, my name is Wind Jammer, and this is the story of how I died.
Melodramatic I know, but I think as one is dying one gets license to be overly dramatic and self-indulging. There is nothing worse than squandered last words. And I have a lot of last words to get out. Thankfully this is going to be a slow death. Well, perhaps not thankfully. I had always hoped that I’d die in a flash and bang. One great moment that would be recorded in the ages like Neighson at the Battle of Trotsfalgar, or perhaps as Crocket had done at Alapony.
Dying in a flash of glory had never been a realistic goal mind you. A simple unicorn like me who’s special talent is sailing doesn’t get to have a glorious death. I was no warrior or frontiers pony. I was the youngest colt of a baker and a potter. I was destined for nothingness same as are most of you hearing this.
Now, don’t take that the wrong way. It’s just a simple fact. For every hero and great figure in history there are thousands who lead perfectly ordinary lives. We can’t all be Princess Platinum or Commander Hurricane after all.
Maybe ‘nothingness’ is too harsh. But I certainly won’t be remembered beyond my few family members and friends. The name ‘Wind Jammer’ may appear in an obituary in a news paper and that is about it. No songs or books will be written, no plays played, nothing except the empty fading to black as the last gasp of air escapes my battered body. But it is a death that is going to give me enough time to tell my story. I hope it does at least.
Anyways we’re getting off track and I can feel the cold already making my legs turn into lead.
Now, before I continue there are some things you should know. The first and most important is this: A boat’s speed is limited by the length of its hull at the water-line. Well, there are some other factors, but that is the simple version. Wave length and height, pitch and roll of the boat, the speed and direction of the current all play their part but that’s just added fluff at this juncture. I once saw a boat that should not go faster than eight knots clipping along at an astounding ten. That is a rare exception that most mariners know better than to push. Just keep it in mind that boats should not go faster than their stated hull-speed. It’s important later.
The next thing you should know is that I made a mistake. I probably should have known better than to leave port when I did. The season was all wrong for the direction I was headed. But I didn’t want to stay another three or four months waiting for the weather to turn. So, I have no pony to blame for this other than myself. I could rail against Celestia and Luna or the cruel twist of the Fates, you know those three pony sisters who spun the thread of life, but that’d be petty. I don’t want to die being petty.
Finally there is no force on this world with as much unbridled raw might as a category five hurricane. Well, except for maybe the Princesses. Though, I did read once a story about Celestia only managing to hold a hurricane at bay for a few hours saving the inhabitants of a coastal village before it was engulfed by wave and wind. It’s probably only an old mare’s tale.
Okay, you have those three things remembered? Good. Now I need to step back a moment. I just realised you know nothing about me.
As I said at the beginning, I am Wind Jammer. I am, or soon to be, was, a fairly tall aqua-marine coated unicorn with an off-white mane that my friends often compared to the frothing foam high winds could whip off the top of the ocean. I have green eyes and usually a goofy sort of grin on my face. My special talent is sailing and everything that goes with getting a boat from point A to point B. And there is my one true love, a love so great I could not pull myself away from her the moment I first saw her shimmering blue under the noon sun; the sea.
Ironic that it is my love that is killing me. No wait, that’s too bitter. Remember the second thing Wind Jammer, you did this to yourself. The sea can’t help her capricious nature. You thought you knew better and could master anything she threw at you. Not her fault you’re as stubborn as a mule sometimes.
As I said, I had loved the sea from the moment I first saw her. That endless expanse of blue that reached beyond the horizon captivated me. With a casual flick a wave would send a small tongue of water slapping against the beach and my hooves. She seemed so calm and playful that first day as I stood entranced. I was only a foal, didn’t even have my cutie mark yet, and I spent that day scampering and playing in the shallow waves. My parents had to pull me away. How I sobbed and screamed all the way back to our home in the low-lands far from the sight of my love.
It wasn’t soon after that I earned my mark. That was another blissful day. I had ‘borrowed’ a neighbors little boat, really a wood dinghy with a single small triangular sail, and sailed it back and forth across the local pond. The body of water was nothing to the sea, barely a couple hundred yards across and twice that in length, but it was enough. With a brisk wind coming down the mountains I made that little wooden boat sing. Back and forth I raced, spinning and tacking like it was nothing. I was hooked.
When I got home the moon had already been raised. On seeing me enter my mother gave out a gasp. At first I thought I was in trouble. I had spent the day at the pond, my brothers, sister, and I had been expressly forbidden from playing near it without adult supervision. Being paraded up to my father didn’t help the impression. But instead of being told off I heard my mother exclaim that I had my cutie mark. I was dumbfounded and when I looked at my flank there it was, a little sail boat leaning slightly in a breeze and riding a crisp wave.
The lecture came later when my parents learned how I had gotten my mark.
As I got older I spent more and more time sailing on that pond until finally I moved to the coast and got a job working on the cruise ships. It wasn’t the same though. Those clunky ugly monstrosities with their coal smoke boilers and prissy rich ponies getting drunk all the time were nothing like the little sail-boats I loved. But the bits were decent and in time I worked my way up to being a second mate. At least I was spending almost all my time riding on my beautiful sea.
Finally I had enough bits to buy my own boat.
Helena.
When I saw her it was like viewing the sea again for the first time. She wasn’t much to look at. A run down ketch with a sliding keel, the white paint peeling off the hull and the wood deck weathered with caulking cracking between its boards. One of the booms had a split in it forcing me to get a replacement. The sails were threadbare almost to the point that bed sheets would be sturdier. But she was mine.
Over the next summer and fall I spent every waking hour working on getting her ready for the sea. The boom was replaced with a new sturdy appendage, sails thick and true stacked on top. Replacing the standing and running rigging had been a chore, as had re-caulking the decks. Every day there was a new challenge or some minor disaster. But I didn’t mind. The improvements could be seen week to week.
As I worked on Helena I met so many new and interesting characters. You may have guessed but not many ponies are sailors. We are creatures of the earth and sky in the case of the Pegasi, but not many take to the sea. Except for the legendary Merponies, but no pony has seen one in centuries. Those ponies that do take to the sea are a special breed all to themselves. We are closer to each other than the nearest neighbors in a town and yet may only meet each other once in our lives. It’s the sea and our mutual love and respect for her that draws us sailors together.
There were families seeking to educate their foals in the world by being out and in it rather than reading about it in a book. The old salts with grizzled manes and features from years spent in the salt and under Celestia’s sun. Rich ponies with more money than sense with vessels a hundred hooves in length. And of course there are young ponies looking for adventure and to find their selves in the search. I even once met a pair earth ponies that had worked as body guards for a Zebra warlord. Honestly, there are as many types of sailor ponies as there are boats on the sea or birds in the sky.
At last Helena was ready and I set sail myself. And for years things have been perfect.
She’s dead now, resting I hope somewhere far bellow my hooves. I can’t feel them anymore now. My hooves I mean. It’s getting harder and harder to keep my head above the water. It won’t be much longer before I join my Helena.
The hurricane came out of nowhere. It shouldn’t have been so far south. They never come below the tenth parallel. Still, I can’t blame the storm. I can’t even blame Helena. It’s my own folly that’s caused this. Never should have left port. Weather was looking a bit odd this year. The mare and colt I spoke to just before weighing anchor had cautioned me about the reports. But I was impatient and had spent too long getting Helena ready for the sea again. Months on the Hard, as we sailor ponies call it, getting her all fixed back up. The first extended stay on land in the years since I had first repaired her. I was over confident. Over confidence can be a dangerous thing at sea.
Hard to breath now. Eyes are getting heavy. Only a minute or two left in me at most.
She, Helena, handled the storm alright at first. I knew we were in trouble the moment the black began to creep across the sky. Hundreds of nautical miles from a hurricane hole we did the only thing you can do. You run, batten down the hatches, and tie yourself to the wheel. We ran for hours, skidding and sliding down the mountain like waves growing around us. Helena took to it like a thoroughbred with only the faintest scrap of cloth on her foresail. But something was wrong with her. She was sick and I hadn’t noticed it.
Too impatient. Had to get back out to the sea. I killed her. Oh Celestia, I killed my Helena.
She was just running down that wave, running like I had never seen her run before. And then she was running too fast. I made her run too fast. The water caught us at the wrong moment as a gust reversed itself pushing us sideways to the wave. Something gave in her belly. Not sure what but probably the keel. It had always been a concern as it was one of those odd hinged affairs that let you creep in closer to shore. Doesn’t matter now anyways. We broached, the wave rolling us over down its side. I broached my Helena and killed her.
It is all my own fault no one else to blame out here. Can only be my fault.
Somehow she didn’t take me with her. Got loose of the rope as she sunk. Took a hit to my head. Horn’s broken clean off. Nothing but a jagged stump there now. Can’t signal for help if there was any pony nearby. Not that there is. I’m alone out here. The pounding in my head stopped some time ago.
I’ve been clinging to a piece of wood floating and bobbing for the last age. I think it was the galley table. Feels like it’s been hours. Probably only a half-hour or so. Time’s funny when you’re dying. Too cold. Everything is so cold.
Will any pony come looking for me?
Will they wonder ‘what happened to Wind Jammer’?
They won’t find anything.
Can’t hold onto the wood any more.
I’m sorry Helena...
I’m sorry...
...
Mama? Papa?