From the log of Maurits van Woot, first boatswain on the Ster van Karelten, sailing under the flag of the Dutch East India Company:

17 July: Rounded the Cape of Tempests in calm seas with little incident. The skipper is in a foul humor owing to his cramped working quarters and the unwieldy size of his keyboard and mouse. In happier news, have lost only 6 men to bloody flux this week. Our apothecary’s application of leeches appears to be efficacious.

22 July: Adriaan Adriaansz, a cooper below decks, reports worms in his bread. I advise him to keep silent around the other men or they will demand worms of their own. Nearly ran aground along the Dysentery Coast, as the skipper was lost in reveries about his spacious desk back home in Utrecht and failed to notice the approaching rocks.

30 July: The skipper’s mental state has taken a turn for the worse. He raves constantly about the clumsy wires of his mouse and the awkward bulk of his keyboard, and entertains rabid delusions of keelhauling the unfortunate peripherals. He fears his own beard is plotting against him, and has fallen in deep romantic love with a pineapple, cradling it in his arms and whispering to it most tenderly. The men mutter darkly among themselves about his lunacy and hint at mutiny. I fear for us all. May God preserve the Ster van Karelten and all aboard her.

7 Aug: Joy! Put in at the port of Nieuw Eindhoven with a cargo of indigo, nutmeg, and tulip bulbs. Upon presenting our credentials to the Governor-General, His Estimacy in turn presented us with a Gyration Ultra Compact Keyboard Suite! No more will our good skipper be tormented by wires. No longer need he fulminate about “that damnable cramp’d desktop”. The Gyration Ultra Compact Mouse boasts motion-sensing technics that allow the skipper to heave it up off of the desk and wave it in the air, while despite its minuscule carriage the Gyration Ultra Compact Keyboard features every letter in the Dutch tongue plus numbers, punctuation marks, and an array of hotkeys. The Governor-General tells us that it’s also a fine companion to the big-screen projector on the leisure deck. Thus filled with hope, we aim to cover the 125 miles between Nieuw Eindhoven and the Isle of Very Pointy Stones in record time, perhaps even by the end of January.

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