By Jonathan Leung

18th November, 1500 Sunny

We set sail this morning from the docks in Beijing, bearing gifts from our emperors (we were privateers), long-may-they-live. When we boarded our ship (i.e. the S.S. Luckylass), our lookout, Un-Luck Lee invited his girlfriend onboard and throwing the ship’s cat Mrs. Tabby overboard. Un-luck Lee always behaved in such offensive ways when he was drunk. Anyway, Captain Chan told Lee that if he continued to behave in this way, he would be marooned since he nearly transformed our S.S. Luckylass into the S.S. Unluckylass.

19th November, 1500 Rainy

The stunts Lee pulled yesterday really angered old Neptune, and he gave us horrible weather. Thunder boomed, lightning flashed, the wind howled and the sea roared. We were like peas in a pan getting fried, while being soaked by seawater. In spite of this, Lee got seasick (he should be a landlubber), which serves him right, but so did his girlfriend, who didn’t knew the rules of the seas and went onboard under his influence. Poor lass. Unfortunately for me and the rest of the crew, we had to clean up after them.

20th November, 1500 Cloudy

Lee’s actions not only angered Neptune, they also angered the sea monsters. Early this morning, Lee spotted some winged female creatures sitting on some rocks through his telescope when he was on lookout duty.

“Sirens!” he exclaimed, before falling out of the crow’s nest and got entangled in the lowest part of the rigging. The captain commanded the cabin boy Lam to get the earplugs (They’re little thingies first officer Chung invented to stuff in ones ears for dimming noises like snoring). However, when he returned, Lee was trying to untangle himself, and he stuck his left leg out, hence making Lam trip and spill all but one pair of earplugs. Captain Chan decided that he would put on the remaining pair of earplugs and steer, whereas the rest of the crew would stay in their cabins and wait until the coast was clear. After a short period of time, the singing got really loud, and for a second, I thought that Chan fell asleep. But then, the sirens stopped singing, and we heard Chan yelling

“They’re leaving! The sirens are leaving!”

We all went on deck and cheered, until the first officer Chang said “Is it just me, or are those rocks moving towards us?” And indeed they were. That’s when I noticed that the “rocks” were green and scaly.

“They’re not rocks,” I said in a worried tone, “they’re part of a sea serpent!” Just as I said that, the “rocks” sank into the water. Then, a gigantic horn poked out of the surface of the water, followed by another equally sized one. After that, the two horn’s owner reared up. It had piggy eyes (thought they were large for us) and was covered in emerald-green scales. We were all terrified, except for Lee, who was rooted to his spot and seemed to be deep in thought. Suddenly, he snapped out of it.

“I have a plan” he said. “Listen.”

Listening to Lee’s ideas was the last thing we would do at any time, but then none of us had other plans, so that was what we did. Lee’s plan was to steer the ship towards a nearby rock and turn left or right when we were near it. Hopefully, the beast would follow our ship, and (hopefully) being large and clumsy, it would crash into the rock. And surprise, surprise, it worked! Everything went according to plan and we escaped. Though we were a little bit soaked. And for the first time in what seemed like a million years, we cheered for Lee.

25th November, 1500 Sunny

Sorry about the long gap. Me and the crew were busy giving away gifts to natives on uncharted lands and navigating these days, and some stupid, lame-brained twit had left a magnet under the compass, and since the compass was placed on the binnacle, nobody spotted it, and we didn't realize that we were going the wrong way until we sailed past an island that we landed on a couple of days ago.

Anyway, at noon, Lee spotted a sight that made us all excited: another island (or at least we thought that it was one). We went ashore the island, except for Lee and his girlfriend, who decide to keep an eye on the ship. There was a mountain right in the middle of the island which towered over us. Captain Chan, who was very energetic, decide to scale it. After an exhausting trek (a little stroll if you asked Chan) up the mountain, we stuck the ship’s flag on its summit. But when we were ready to leave, we realize that 99 percent of the island had sunk into the water. That’s when we uncovered the truth. We weren’t on an island. We were on a man-munching, guy-gulping Aspidochelone! The next thing we knew, we were paddling in salty seawater. And a few metres from us was the opened mouth of the Aspidochelone. It glared at us greedily with a gleam in its eyes as a ravenous child might at a table of food on New Year’s day. I closed my eyes and thought, “Goodbye, world… and hello, underworld.” But when we thought all hope was lost, we heard a loud bang, and the Aspidochelone was bashed by a large cannonball. It was Lee!

He yelled at the beast, “If you want to scoff my mates, you’ll have to get me first!”

So the beast made a ninety degree turn (that took it a little time) and chased after our ship. Meanwhile, Lee steered the ship towards us, and his girlfriend fired a couple more of cannonballs at the beast. The rest of us (except me, because I was a bad swimmer) swam towards the ship and scrambled aboard. Lee plunged into the water to save me. He towed me back to the ship. When we were climbing up the rope ladder, lee’s hand slipped, and he fell into the water. And as quick as lightning, the Aspidochelone swallowed him whole.

3rd December, 1500 Cloudy

We sailed all the way back to Beijing and told the Emperor and the people of the city the bad news. A few hours later, we stood before the empty tomb of Un-Luck Lee that the Emperor prepared with Lee’s friends and family. A lot of us wept for him, because he save the entire crew- twice! Suddenly, we heard a voice yelling “Hey, guys! I haven’t hopped the twig yet!” It was Lee! He was still alive! It turned out that Lee found a boat and some oars inside the Aspidochelone, and he used them to escape when it opened its mouth to eat. Hence everyone was happy and the entire crew was safe. And yes, dear diary, this is the end of my wacky sea journey.

Extracts from a Pirate’s Dairy