Sailing Tips Part I Can't Remember

I sit in the lab in my boats rear cabin, on the stainless steal table lay the specimen. By specimen I mean a wooden post/peg leg, or by today’s definition a leg carved from wood in a crude fashion, so as to help needy pirates who do not qualify for an HMO. They also make a great clumping noise, which inspires fear, something any pirate worth his salt just loves to do. I look up from my work at hand, light my pipe and stroll out into the main salon; I study the pile of kindling beside my wood stove, a pile of peg legs! These are fine, what appear to be vintage peg legs, something like you would find at Pier One, old looking, they burn well too, many an evening I have sat in my rocker warmed by the Franklin Stove fueled by Troubles labors. As it turns out they are old, centuries old if my carbon dating proves correct, odd I thought. For the last year every Tuesday and Thursday Trouble has delivered said sticks to my cockpit door and I pour my little buddy a caffeine free diet coke, Trouble loves the diet coke and I find the mystery of the peg legs intriguing, so continues the Tuesday and Thursday ritual.
I step out and take a seat at the wheel protected by my dodger from the warm spring rain, I smoke my pipe and listen to the rain, peaceful I think, the water of life. My thoughts drift, a late night reverie after a hard night in the lab, I look around and admire my boat, Queen Anne’s Revenge is her name, I won her at the 1987 World Mumbly Peg Championships. (different story). I pour myself some grog sit back take a draw, its time to relax. Around mid glass I hear a clumping sound, this clumping sound is approaching my boat it grows louder, this sound inspires fear in my heart, I finish the grog, the fear is tempered I stop and listen the clumping has stopped. I sit and count my heartbeats, they diminish in beats per minute and I begin to think of rational explanations for the terrifying clumping. I laugh at my foolishness and then out of the corner of my eye I notice what appears to be a man in a hat sitting on the stern of my boat, my heart rate doubles. It is a man, a shadowy figure of a man and he is missing a leg and flipping a peg leg 360 degrees in the air like a circus act with his free hand, the hand not brandishing a cutlass! I jolt to my feet almost spill my grog, had it not been for my quick thinking just seconds earlier to finish my mug I surely would have spilled my valuable medicine. I blinked several times just to be sure I had not dosed off and was just regaining my vision, but the shadowy figure remained, flipping the peg and testing my deck with his cutlass. I said, “Sir kindly do not poke at my deck with your weapon and please explain your presence, if memory serves, your presence is uninvited”. SF: (Shadowy Figure) replies, it is you sir 2nd cousin to Tailer twelve times removed who owes me an explanation! B: (bailer or myself) replies I owe you? SF: I hope you are not getting your jollies by playing the fool, but then again that would not be a reach for you now would it be? B: Jollies? Fool what in the Joshua Slocum are you talking about? SF: Are you daft? You train a dog to steal my peg leg so you can take it, burn it in your stove or to whittle on it during the summer only taking breaks to hoot and holler at the lady members. Fortunately I paid extra for the extended warranty and insurance so I am covered if I damage or my peg is stolen, however and listen close, the insurance is going to stop covering me, so let it be known I warned you to stop, stop or feel the steely steeliness of my sword or cutlass as the modern fool would refer to my tool of defense. What kind of man does this to a legend such as myself, a man of honor. B: I have not trained Trouble to steal your leg(s), leave trouble out of this and besides I just did some carbon dating and your peg legs are hundreds of years old, these things are all identical and all museum pieces, it tears me apart inside to think I took part in the destruction of history, had I known they were museum pieces I would have told Trouble to stop, err…Doh! SF: I know Trouble was just playing fetch for caffeine free diet coke, you found the wee ones weak spot and exploited it, you sir are nothing but a cur! B: Cur? I’d look that up but I we don’t have wi-fi yet so I’m just going to have to let that one slide, now…
My head began to swim, I saw multiple Shadowy Figures and then I slid out of my chair onto the deck .I remember waking up on the deck at high noon with a throbbing head ache and a damp chamois type cloth stuffed in my mouth that tasted like the sea. I gathered my wits, went down to my lab and studied the chamois under a microscope. Enough is enough I am a born skeptic so I have decided someone in this club is playing tricks on me and my pragmatic nature, this piece of leather was born from a rare species of bovine over one thousand years old and was written in cuneiform (one of my languages) it was written with invisible ink or lemon juice which is visible under ultraviolet lighting. The juice was tested and dated the same as the rare bovine leather, what it translated to was not a surprise but still a puzzle. Still relevant after 5 years or even over one thousand years, I feel closer to Tailer but he also has become even more of a mystery, we are becoming one and two at the same time or something like that. History repeats itself, we learn from our mistakes so I guess this helps explain why these tips stand the test, but I am really anxious as to who if anyone visited my boat and if he or it had anything to do with the Tailer gone missing mystery….So what was written on the ancient bovine skin? This is the question of the week or two weeks depending on how long it takes you to respond or me to feel inspired to forget this post and move on, times awastin'!
Pirate humor:An able-bodied seaman meets a pirate in a bar, and they take turns recounting their adventures at sea. Noting the pirate's peg-leg, hook, and eye patch, the seaman asks, "So, how did you end up with the peg-leg?"

The pirate replies "We was caught in a monster storm off the Cape and a giant wave swept me overboard. Just as they was pullin' me out a school of sharks appeared and one of 'em bit me leg plum off!"

"Blimey!" said the seaman. "What about the hook"?

"Ahhhh...," mused the pirate, "We was boardin' a trader ship, pistols a 'blastin' and swords a'swingin' this way and that. In the fracas me hand got chopped off."

"Zounds!" remarked the seaman. "And how came ye by the eye patch"?

"A seagull droppin' fell into me eye," answered the pirate.

"Ye lost your eye to a seagull dropping?" the sailor asked incredulously.

"Welllll..." explained the pirate, "..it was me first day with the hook."