16 What now?

February, 1513

'In the end, my adventure starts 6 years earlier than initially planned… What now?'

A lot of such thoughts are bothering me since Sabo and I set sail and went out to sea. It just happened yesterday, but still… I would really like to just laugh it off, enjoy the sea and the currently gentle waves, be adventurous and challenge any possible obstacle head on, but… our situation wasn't what could be called ideal… or even good.

Both of us, brought food provisions and some money and Sabo even went a step further and brought some simple tools, a few maps and books and even a compass. It was just that most, if not all of it, would sink together with the boat if we encountered a somewhat strong storm.

After all, we neither have a skilled navigator, who would be able to notice the signs of a storm before it happened, nor an experienced helmsman who could steer the ship, or boat in our case, to safety.

I could cut all the waves apart that would threaten our boat but if a slightly bigger wave raised from beneath us, the boat would be instantly flipped over. If we had a ship then that might not be necessarily the case but we don't have one.

Although I'm confident that I could keep me and Sabo from dying if a storm appeared, but in the worst case scenario we would be stranded on the sea, with nothing except what we are wearing on ourselves.

Being in that situation is scarier than what Rayleigh made it look like when he freaking swam to Amazone Lily! The swimming isn't really the problem for me even with Sabo around but unlike us he, at least had a destination in mind and, only Oda knows how, but he knew in which direction to swim, when to change or correct the course and so on.

We on the other hand were so excited and also stupid, that we set sail without choosing a destination before. We noticed that we didn't have a destination only after Dawn Island had disappeared since long from our sights and it became impossible for us to locate our position, given that we both never learned how to navigate.

Because of that I was constantly keeping the maps and the compass on myself. You can never underestimate the sea in One Piece!

Our current plan is to reach an island, which is hopefully on one of the maps, so even if it's uninhabited we could still try to locate our position by then and choose a destination and a route in that general direction before departing again. Therefor the compass and maps are extremely important, which is also the reason why I'm keeping them both on me.

Left with nothing to do except looking out for any islands, I start thinking about the crew. Or rather the crew's future. Having something like a plan would be nice.

First, we should find a navigator, the problem is there aren't many known navigators in One Piece. Nami is a no, not because of the plot but because she is currently around 9 years old and not a navigator yet. The second most known navigator should be lafitte but not much is known about him.

What little is known about him is that he has a cruel and at times brutal personality judging by the fact that he liked to torture his captives while he was a sheriff. Besides that he believes in dreams and enjoys chaos to a certain degree.

The third option would be Bepo, the navigator of the future heart pirates. He should be the same age as Sabo and me so he is still young. Around two years ago was when he arrived on an island in the north blue. In about a year, he will be following Law around, which brings me to my second point.

A doctor. Obviously I thought about Law who will be 15 years old this year. If I can make him join, then Bepo most likely will join too. If so, should I bait him with revenge? If he already healed his disease, which is highly likely, than revenge on Doflamingo should be on top of Law's to do list on the moment.

Who else is a potential crewmate? Nico Robin of course. Putting aside the fact that she is one of the most beautiful women in this world, the fact that she is the last living person who can read the Poneglyphes is the main reason since if I decide to go and see what my fathers greatest treasure was, I'll need her on my ship.

What about a cook and a helmsman? Well there is one person, whom I'd like to recruit to be my helmsman but it's extremely unlikely that we will meet and even more so that that we will meet on good terms, given my current occupation, so it's also highly unlikely for him to agree to join my crew.

As for the cook, I have no idea. I'll just take on that role for now. I'm not a star chef but I can make simple meals that will keep us from starving until we find a real cook.

I should probably also try and find a capable shipwright but this case is similar to the case of the helmsman I mentioned.

As for a ship, once we have some more crewmates, we can just take over a ship of any pirate we find on the sea until we buy our own ship on water 7.

"! Jackson-nii! There is an island!"

Sabo woke me up from my thoughts. The sun was already about to set when the small island finally entered our sights, so we made haste to go on land before the sky darkened. We decided to explore the island for a bit and stay the night on land instead of staying on our boat.

With my observationhaki I confirmed that the island was completely uninhabited, not even a single animal was here, despite a dense vegetation. Regardless neither of us could feel any kind of danger from this island so we decided to rest, eat and sleep first and plan everything else tomorrow.

The next morning

After waking up Sabo and eating breakfast together, I take out the maps and use gepo to shoot up in the sky.

'instead of walking around the island's outer lines, I can just inspect and compare its form from up her.'

The islands outline matches an island's outline on the second map so we now at least know where exactly we were.

'Honestly Sabo, thank you for remembering to pack some maps and such! Without them we would still be none the wiser.'

While praising my little brother in my heart, I come down to show him where exactly we are so we can scan the map for our next destination and plan a route, or at least doing our best while trying it.

My gaze suddenly stops on a specific island and I instinctively put my finger there.

"This island! I want to go there next!"

"Eh? Are you sure Jackson-nii? Look, based on the route between Dawn Island and this island which took us almost 2 days, it would take us at least over a week to get there. And also only if we take a direct route and the weather stays as good as this."

Thanks for the info but I can see that by myself, after all the map is in front of me just as much as it is in front of you. But I can't tell him that, he looks so proud of himself for analyzing this.

But he is right about the weather since it's the most uncertain factor out on sea. Keeping that in mind it's better not to take the risky direct route.

"There is no need to be in a hurry, we can make stops on the islands, that are practically along the way and see what they have to offer."

"Reall? If we spend 1 or two days on every island that is on the way, than it may take a whole month till we reach that island! What even is on there that interests you so much?"

"Let's just say I want to spend some time on that Island."