The Driest Pirate on the Seven Seas
Have you ever thought about what pirates were afraid of? I mean, besides the usual suspects like the Kraken, scurvy, or an empty rum bottle. You’d think for a bunch of folks who make their living on the endless, terrifyingly deep ocean, water wouldn’t even make the list.
Well, you’d be wrong.
Meet Captain Bartholomew, a name that sounds respectable enough until you learn his nickname: Captain “Dry-Socks” Bartholomew. And he wasn’t called that because he had a fantastic new-fangled laundry system on his ship, The Damp Despair. No, he was called Captain Dry-Socks because he was, to put it mildly, utterly, ridiculously terrified of water.
Not just the ocean. All water. Puddles. A heavy fog. An overly juicy orange.
Being a pirate with aquaphobia is, as you can imagine, a logistical nightmare. For starters, Captain Dry-Socks refused to walk a normal-sized plank. His was a custom-built, 30-foot-long mahogany monstrosity that had to be carried ashore by four grumbling crew members, ensuring he could disembark directly onto a patch of unequivocally dry land.
His personal hygiene was a masterclass in creative water-avoidance. He believed in the “damp rag and a prayer” method. His first mate, a burly man named Gus who had lost his nose in a sword fight, once made the mistake of swabbing the deck with a full bucket near the captain’s quarters. The shriek that erupted was so high-pitched it scared the barnacles off the hull. Gus was on dish duty for a month.
But the real comedy gold happened during storms. While the rest of the crew was battling 40-foot waves and gale-force winds, Captain Dry-Socks would be below deck, wrapped in every blanket he owned, building a pillow fort. His primary concern wasn’t the ship splitting in two, but the horrifying possibility of a leak. He’d sit there, armed with a caulking gun, eyeing the ceiling suspiciously. “Did you feel that? I felt a drip. Gus, I swear if that’s you with a bucket again, I’m turning this ship around!”
You might be wondering how this man ever became a captain. Well, he was a brilliant navigator (as long as he could do it from a very dry room with very thick windows) and a master strategist. And, as it turned out, his phobia once saved everyone’s life.
They were being boarded by a rival crew, led by the notoriously unpleasant “Stinky” Steve. The fighting was fierce, and Stinky himself cornered Captain Dry-Socks against the ship’s rail.
“End of the line, Dry-Socks!” Steve sneered, brandishing his cutlass. “Say hello to Davy Jones!”
He shoved Bartholomew hard. But Bartholomew, seeing the churning, splashy, horrifyingly wet ocean behind him, did not fall. He clung to the railing with the kind of superhuman strength only pure, unadulterated terror can provide. His fingers basically merged with the wood. He was more barnacle than man at that point.
Stinky Steve, not expecting his victim to become a permanent ship fixture, had put all his weight into the push. With nothing to stop his momentum, he sailed right over Bartholomew’s head with a comical “Waaaaah!” and landed in the sea with a satisfying splash.
The sight of their captain being defeated by a man refusing to get wet was so demoralizing that the rest of the invading crew just sort of… stopped fighting. They rowed over, fished a sputtering and considerably less Stinky Steve out of the water, and paddled away in shame.
The crew of The Damp Despair let out a mighty cheer. Captain Dry-Socks, however, was still trying to surgically remove his fingers from the railing, hyperventilating. “It was so… moist,” he whispered, shuddering.
Gus patted him on the back. “You did it, Cap’n! You faced your fear!”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Gus,” Bartholomew snapped, finally prying a finger loose. “Now, fetch me a towel. I think I saw a splash.”
Pam Beach “Beyond the Blog
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