Jack stumbled, throwing his sword arm askew as he caught his footing on the soft, white sand of the beach. Wait, beach? He looked about in confusion at the white shore and the gentile waves that lapped the sand. He was still wearing his coat, his hat, his boots. His sword was in his ring bedecked hand and a twist of his head proved the beads still lay in his hair. But a moment ago he had been on the Pearl.
"The Pearl!" He swung around, looking out to see … and quickly located his lady dancing lightly in place in the cove. On reflex, he glanced beyond her gleaming spars where could see the breakers forming as the waves crossed the reef at the cove's mouth, and the spot of deeper blue where the safe passage passed. But it was the Pearl who garnered the bulk of his attention. She was whole and strong, her sails luffing proudly in the wind. Which was impossible.
Jack turned back to the island, trying to make sense of how he could have been one moment leaping into the mouth of the kraken, his beloved Pearl falling to pieces about him, and the next here, on this island. A closer look at the palm trees before him offered a clue.
It took only a moment to shed his coat, sword, and boots, and but another to scamper up the nearest palm like a monkey. And nestled where the coconuts should be he found another brown object of a decidedly different origin, several of which he quickly loosed and dropped carefully into the soft sand below.
Once safely back on terra firma, Jack picked up one of the objects, wiggled the cork from the neck, and took a good sniff. The sniff was immediately followed by taking a slug from the bottle. Jack let out a contented sigh as the rich rum settled into his stomach. That did it. He knew exactly where he was.
"Now, where's the ladies?"
Now
when you're in dock and the long trip is through
There's pubs and
there's clubs and there's lassies there too
And the girls are all
pretty and the beer is all free
And there's bottles of rum growing
on every tree.
-From the old folk song Fiddlers Green