Grayling, the fourth game fish.
A bad day's fishing beats a good day's writing

When Alex joins the Waterborne community in the Med she meets others. The book is not all death and adventure and I just want to share this little bit of fun:

The Waterborne community of the Mediterranean absorbed Alexandra’s attention for days, then weeks, then months. She met new spirits almost daily.

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They came and went, always travelling and seeking new communities to join. Sometimes they would come as a couple and Alex was fascinated by the aura of contentment that surrounded these lovers. Philip was never far from her thoughts and the arrival of these couples sent her into reveries of reflection of their time together.
All visitors were kind and welcoming, and each had a fascinating story to tell:
There was the Dutch student whose small yacht was run down in the English Channel by an oil tanker; the Slovenian caver, drowned when a storm filled the cave he was exploring, who battled through miles of underground caves and tunnels to find the wide river and then the sea; the American Arctic oil exploration worker who slipped through a hole in the ice; and the pirate – Alex loved the pirate, with his quaint way of speaking.
Henry the pirate never really knew why he was in the water because the last time he remembered the other life was in a big bawdy inn in Nassau. This was three hundred and twenty-four years ago and he was arguing with a large woman who had a heavy pewter tankard in one hand and his hair in the other. He fondly recalled admiring the expanse of her bosom and telling her how much he would pay her to sleep between them. She thought they were worth ten times what he was offering and when he drunkenly and obstinately refused to increase his offer she swung back the tankard and her huge, muscular arm cracked it across his skull. The next thing he knew he was staring at a barnacle covered harbour wall, from beneath the waves, with no recollection of how he came to be there. Alex asked him to tell her stories of his adventures but he was hesitant. It was not a good life, he would tell her. He lived in filthy conditions, missed his family and faced the unpredictable sea and his unpredictable ship-mates every day. All promises of riches were false and they were always running away from someone, or hiding from another.
“Where would I spend my ill gotten riches if I ‘ad ‘em? Me first sortie on the shores of a civilised nation and I would ‘ave me neck stretched. The Spaniards ‘ated us, the Frenchies ‘ated us and the Hinglish ‘ated us.” He was Cornish.
Alex told him about her life. At first she carefully explained all references to modern technology but it became clear that this was unnecessary. He did not ‘live’ in the seventeenth century but had followed the course of technology, industry and progress as he met each newly arrived spirit and heard their story. He even knew what the internet was, in a distant, vaguely piratical sense.
When Henry got chatting he would start to tell his tales. As soon as Alex sensed him getting into the mood she would encourage him, obliquely:
“My father would tell me about his journeys down the great rivers of Russia,” She would say, “In winter they would leave the ship mid stream and walk to the nearest town. He saw sturgeon the size of horses.”
“That’s nothing,” (Henry was hooked) “I once saw a fish that was longer than our ship. It was in its death throes when it flapped towards us with a long, sharp ‘orn protruding from its ‘ead, threatening to drill our timbers. The captain ordered me over the side and told me to leap astride the ‘orn and tie sounding leads to it to make it founder. ‘enry, he said, leap astride his ‘orn and tie sounding leads to it to make it founder. I slung an ‘eap of leads over me shoulder, stood on the gunwales and waited for it to approach. As an afterthought the first mate tied a sheet around me middle. The captain thought I weren’t worth keeping and was useful just to add extra weight to the leads but I supplied the first mate with some fine girls in Kingstown, so ‘e decided I was worth keeping. As soon as I thought it was as near as needed I leapt. I grabbed its ‘orn and ‘ung on for dear life. The leads were causing me to swing under and drown so the lads ‘eaved on the sheet round me middle and pulled me back round so I could grab a mouthful of air. As I came back up I saw this fishes eye, as big as a cannon ball, staring pityingly at me – eyeball to cannonball, you might say. I ‘oiked the leads off me shoulder and wrapped ‘em round the ‘orn. As soon as I was free of the weights I slid under again, ankles crossed above and me ‘ands ‘anging on for grim death, with me ‘ead opposite the fishes mouth. I saw those rows of pointy teeth and I shot round the other side, shouting for them to pull like blazes. They lifted me up like a soggy limp doll and the poor fish was pulled down by the weight of the leads, under the keel and away. The lads all cheered and slapped me on the back. The captain comes up to me and says – ‘You’re the first sailor aboard to go round the ‘orn - twice. Congratulations Henry.’”
Alex showed her appreciation of his courage in defence of his shipmates and then they both laughed for a long time.