//------------------------------//
// June 23rd, 2015 
// Story: Perils of a Merpony: A Ponies after People Tale 
// by kitten_girl86 
//------------------------------//

June 23rd, 2015 @ 11:20PM ~Patrick
 Dear Journal,

Ahoy! Sorry we ‘ave nah been updatin' as much as we should 'ave. I got a lot t' report so hang onto yer hats!

Kathy was nigh-on completely back t' normal by th' next mornin'... Raea had nah come t' find any o' us durin' th' night so no more fevers.

But th' strange thin' was: she’s now stuck in merpony form 'n could nah change back!

Despite our protests, Kathy insists that she's fine 'n we can still go on th' site location scoutin' today.

So we packed th' same backpacks from th' flyin' 'n Kathy used me wheels while I flew along side; we were only walkin' as far as th' beach; we'd swim from thar 'n unlikely that we'd be goin' a-shore fer anythin'.

Th’ swim out to th’ ocean from Campus City was a bit o’ swimmin’ but Kathy seemed happy t’ jus’ be back in th’ ocean.

(OK, stopping with the Pirate.... not as fun as text as it is in voice; it’s hard and I'm out of practice!)

While we were swimming for the farthest location, Kathryn confessed that she has been starting to remember what happened during her sick night. I think she called it “delayed memory” or some such. 
She then proceeded to apologize for everything she did recall doing... up-chucking, waking us from sleep, being a nuisance. A look passed between me and Sarah; we just decided to accept her words and move on.

We weren’t even half way to the top location when Kathy called a stop and said, “To hell!” with the first location; she said it was WAY too far from CC to be any current use to us. “Mark it for future generations’ expansion but for now, it’s too far to travel from Campus City,” she had said.

The second was not that far from where we stopped and turned back and Kathy scrutinized it from every direction before saying it was a possibility. “A bit farther than I’d have liked but far closer to where we want to be,” she had said. –Yes, I do recall everything she said because I recorded it all on a series of GoPro’s I carried with me! – 

We skipped right along to the #3... The one that both Sarah & I love and think it’s the best one. I got ahead of Kathy and recorded her reaction as we exited the 20ft tall kelp forest just north of the site. Her face lit up like nothing I had ever seen; I knew she loved it as much as we had.
“We don’t even need to see location four. This is it. THIS will be our colony!”

Kathy called the rock formation a plateau and said it would make a perfect foundation for our sunken ships. The kelp forest to the north had already proved that it was an ideal location for growing water crops and the sun was gleaming brightly down into the water so we could sea (ha! ha! ha!) the whole thing. 
I had done a panoramic shot of the whole place with the GoPro and then turned it off to save space on the card. I hovered in the water with Sarah & Kathy, both lost in their own thoughts. 
No idea what they were thinking; but I was imagining the colony all built up with a variety of ships purposefully sunk, neatly plowed sand off to the northwest ready for planting, multiple merponies swimming around and waving to each other.

Kathy then suddenly dropped to the plateau; I fumbled and started recording again. I filmed as she started picking up stones from around the plateau and started building a round circle, building it up in multiple rows until it almost resembled a stone wishing well. 

She then proceeded to fill the middle with sand; Sarah had found a HUGE piece of slate slab that she could shovel the sand from the bottom and into the middle. Kathy came back with a few pieces of seaweed & sea grass, roots and all, transplanting them into the top, like a stone planter.
I found a piece of driftwood nearby and stuck that in the very center of the planter, tying on the white bandanna I had worn around my neck that morning (instead of my goggles). Kathy simply smiled and nodded as she added sea shells to the outer rim of the planter.

The three of us standing back from our master piece, Sarah whispered, “What are we going to call it?”
“None o’ yer suggestions, that’s fer sure!” I joked behind the camera. I had been rewarded with a hoof punch to my shoulder.
“Bermareda Circle,” Kathy said. 
Pause of silence as the idea sunk in (no pun intended there!)
“Ahh!” said Sarah, who seemed to like it. 
I didn’t care either way so I simply nodded when Kathy looked at me.
“How did you come up with that?” Sarah asked.

Kathy was quiet for a bit but then said, “I read what Sarah wrote about calling Baltimore “Baltimare” and I thought it was funny because I had had the same thought myself at the time. When I was sick, I kept hearing a voice telling me ‘Bermuda Triangle but pony it’. Then I remembered a song from my childhood in Girl Guides... Girl Scouts to you... 

Make new friends, but keep the old.
One is silver, and the other’s gold.

A circle is round, it has no end.
That's how long, I want to be your friend.

A fire burns bright, it warms the heart.
We've been friends, from the very start.

Across the land and across the sea,
Friends forever, we will always be.


Certain verses resounded with me. So, instead of triangle I thought of a Circle for our colony’s name and the overall shape...  this planter is the center of the circle and we lay out the ships in alternating eccentric circles, like the petals of a rose. ‘Bermuda’ was fairly easy to turn pony: ‘Bermareda’. It’ll be called BC for short...”
“I love it,” said Sarah.
“I concur,” I can be heard to say on the video.

I found another stick of wood, planted that in the sand upright, strapped the GoPro to it and set the timer, taking a picture of the three of us beside the planter.
And thus, Bermareda Circle was born on June 22nd, 2015!

We showed Griz & Jazz the GoPro video of BC that night after dinner. By then, Kathy got her merpony magic back to working like normal so I got my wheels back too.
Sarah transferred the photos to the shared tablet and made the group picture the desktop image before hooking it up to the only working printer and making a copy for the cork board.
Kathy went over to the map and circled the #3 spot with a red marker and then labeled it ‘Bermareda Circle’.
“Tomorrow, I want us to go find our ships,” she pronounced.
“I already got mine,” I said with a shrug.
Everyone in the room looked right at me... some with confusion, some with envy.
“What? When? Where??” asked Jazz.
“I spotted her from the air when we went flying that day. I went back after our brainstorming, as soon as Kathy had gone to bed early, and I sailed her to the south coast of Sandspur Island, beaching her up on the sand.” Sandspur is that little island to the south of CC; we pass by on its east coast as we swim out to the ocean.
“Oh, and her name is Jolly Roger 2, btw.... JR2 for short,” I added. 

(1)
She’s a beauty! White carbon fiber hull, wooden plank exterior... equally wooden plank interior with a good sized Captain’s quarters.
I might see about taking out a wall or two to make it more open concept but we shall see.

Earlier today, I captained the Coast Guard boat out to Sandspur to take all of us out to see JR2. She weathered the last couple of days ok on her own. 
Griz admired her mast from the sky; Sarah & Jazz explored the inside; Kathy bumped the hull with her hoof to test the strength. “Yup, she’s perfect for you Patrick... modern but piratey; just like you,” Sarah had said when she came back out.
Kathy poked her head inside for a moment before hopping back down to the beach, where Sarah & I had been soaking our tails. “We’ll have to pull out the carpet and drill some holes in the hull to let the water in, but she should sink just fine for ya, Patrick. That’s one less ship for us to find, eh?”

JR2 had plenty of fuel left so I had suggested we use her to go find the others; she runs on gasoline and I figured, why let it go to waste?
Kathy & Griz pushed her back into the water while Sarah & Jazz beached the Coast Guard boat; then everyone climbed (or in Griz & Jazz’s case, flew) on board. 
I captained her out into the bay, the bridge being tall enough to let JR2’s mast to pass easily underneath.

Kathy had brought her GPS and the map from the wall with us so we could mark down certain things. JR2 had come with some anchors and buoys so Kathy wanted to mark BC on the surface with them.
We found a bunch of life guard huts along the ‘Haulover Beach’ (according to GPS) and Kathy had the idea of tearing some of them apart for wood to build a marina so we could work on the ships closer to where we plan to sink them. “Not this first one,” she had said. “The ones further down. This #1 we leave intact in case of emergency.” The idea had merit and so we all agreed. 
Griz pointed out the emergency dune buggy parked next to it. “We can gather the wheels from the fuel-empty buggies and put them on the flatbed trailer and then haul it with one buggy that does work.” 
After a look between them, Griz & Jazz had suddenly taken to the air. “You ponies don’t need us to find your ships. We’ll get started here on the marina,” Griz said, pointing with her talon from us on the boat to the dune buggy to the sand directly in front of it.
I gave a simple wave before turning JR2 back towards the way we came, back into the bay of Campus City but steering south to locate nearby mini marinas for all of the boats.

We ended up finding Sarah’s boat down at the Pelican Harbor Marina. A dandy of a little ship with only one bed and no carpet anywhere so it only needed the engine removed and a good cleaning.

(2)
Sarah renamed the boat, “Sea Splasher” the moment she saw it. We knew she was in love with it.
I spent an hour teaching her how to pilot the boat so she could get it back to Haulover beach and lend Griz & Jazz a hoof on the new marina.

We ended up farther down than location #4 on the map but Kathy had found a shopping mall pretty much right on the water and so she insisted that we go and check it out! [GPS: Miamarina] I will never understand girls and their need to shop.
Kathy went nuts when she found a Disney store and Claire’s; my mind was totally on the store called GameStop... I haven’t played any video games in ages! And now I'm in a metaphorical library with no late fees. :D
The visit to that mall ended after Victoria’s Secret and Kathy found her boat in the marina; she had spotted it from a window in Victoria.

(3)
Kathryn renamed it “The Escape”; she explained that her plan was to keep both the RV & have her own ship in the water, so if needed she could be in either place and stay the night if required. “Plus, the RV gives Raea a home when I'm in the water as she can’t come with me.”   
Kathy’s boat is far older than other two but still well cared for (and the manuals were old paper). Similar interior to Sarah’s but only one upper level and cleaner lines.
‘Escape’ was moored on an outside dock so it was a simple thing to get JR2 into position and then, since Escape was smaller, simply tow her away. 

We backtracked up north and found Mt Sinai Medical Center on our way! There was no marina so we simply pulled the two boats up alongside of the back driveway, a road simply labeled “Edward”. I used a beach anchor to hold both boats in place while we went ashore to see if we could find anything useful.
And oh boy did we ever!

His name is Dr Jamie Jones. He’s an Earth pony.... a LAND Earth pony! He’s got a dark blue body, blue streaked white mane & tail; wears a rainbow colored headband and a crisp clean white shirt that has clearly been modified to fit him. His cutie mark (?) is strange for a doctor: a brown pocket filled with pens and pencil.
 

We were searching for first aid kits, making a lot of racket by the way, and he had snuck up on us. I'm sure Kathy could describe this part better...
The first things out of the Doctor’s mouth was, “Who the blazes are ya and what are ya boy?”
 After been nearly scared out of our skins, Kathy calmly explained that I was a merpony and she, like him, was an Earth pony. “My name is Kathryn; his is Patrick. We only came here for medical supplies for our colony.”

He had dropped the IV pole he had been wielding like a weapon and hurried over. “There are more of you? Where? I've been alone for the last three days,” he said, grey eyes wide and pleading.
Kathy & I realized pretty quickly that he was a recent returnee.
“We’re not that far from here, if you want to come back with us on our boat. Is it still ok for us to take supplies?” I had asked.
“Oh, of course! Go right ahead... I’ll just be a few minutes,” he said before running off.

He had come back carrying a hastily stuffed doctor’s bag in his mouth, a couple white lab coats draped over his back and another small duffle bag on top of the coats.  
Kathy & I had loaded up a wagon (I had found outside) with as many kits as we could find and/or reach. We also grabbed some IV drip bags and a batch of syringes despite not knowing how to use them.
“Does your group have a medic?” he asked. Kathy shook her head.
“We’ve been lucky so far that we haven’t needed one but it was only a matter of time,” she said.
“Nuh uh!” I said. “You got sick the other night, Kathy. We didn’t know what the heck we were doing! You got better on your own and that was sheer luck.”
“Sick, you say?” he said. “OH, goodness me! Where are my manners? The name is Dr Jamie; Dr Jamie Jones, but please do not make the joke... it’s too old, kinda like me.”
I bit my tongue in order to stop the joke before it got out.

He then proceeded to check Kathy’s vitals right there in the storage bay! But she was having none of it. “No, no; please Doctor, we don’t have time for that right now. We need to be heading back so the others don’t worry about us. You can check me AND the others when we get back to Campus City.”
Dr Jamie conceded and then helped Kathy to pull the wagon out of the building. There had been a local map inside of Kathy’s boat and so I had drawn a boat route from the hospital to the location of Campus City and I left it taped to the inside of the windows at the main entrance, facing out.
He did raise an eyebrow when he saw the two boats but said nothing at the time.

It was not until we were back underway before we spoke.
“So, Dr Jamie, any reason you’re wearing a PRIDE headband?” I had asked out of the blue. 
“That’s not polite, Patrick! For shame!” Kathy berated me.
“Oh no, it’s fine. To be honest, it belonged to a colleague who is... er, rather, was gay. He used to wear it all of the time to keep his wild hair out of his face. When my.... mane? would not cooperate with me, I stole this from his locker and found that it worked. I am a Straight Ally; in case you’re wondering.” Dr Jamie touched the headband with a hoof gently to adjust it slightly.
“What’s a Straight Ally?” I asked.
“It’s when you, yourself, are straight but you are supportive of those who are LBGT+. I consider myself one as well,” Kathy said as she took inventory of what we got.
I then proceeded to tell Dr Jamie about the cutie marks on our flanks. But like Sarah, he could not explain the cutie mark on his flank. “It was there when I woke up,” he said, slightly confused.

Silence reigned for a while before I let out a huge sigh.
“Are you gonna show him, Kathy, or am I gonna have to tell him?” I said finally.
“Huh? Oh.... yeah, I guess you’re right,” she said, slightly blushing. “I'm not just a normal Earth pony like you, Dr. I am a transformer and that’s what my cutie mark means,” she said as she moved to the open space and allowed her magic to take over.
Dr Jamie leaped from his seat in surprise at seeing Kathy now on the floor in her fur-color-matching scaled tail. “She’s the only one of us merponies who can change like that,” I added as she reverted back.
“That’s the reason for the boats. We’re gonna modify them and sink them to create our own underwater colony,” she said as she reached for the GPS.
“Who’s waiting for you back at Campus City?” Dr Jamie asked.
“There’s Jazz, land pony pegasus.... she’s got wings,” I added the end when I saw his look of confusion. “There’s Griz, our resident griffon. Yeah, a real griffon.... and a real pain sometimes... ow!” I said when Kathy jabbed her elbow in my ribs. “Be nice,” she hissed.
“And then there’s Sarah, our unicorn merpony... she’s got a horn and can do magic like levitation,” I said in explanation.
He seemed surprised and not quite believing.

But he certainly believed when we arrived at the Campus City beach and dropped the two anchors to find Sarah’s ship already there, and Sarah standing with her wheels on the beach.
“We found a hospital on our way back and got supplies! Can you levitate them to the beach so I can haul them in the wagon and not have to beach the ship?” Kathy called. Sarah nodded as she stepped down into the water at the beach; her horn glowed brighter the deeper she went; the boxes became encased in her magic aura and we all watched as they slowly floated down to the side of the road.
Dr Jamie simply nodded in my direction. 
Kathy transformed and jumped into the water as soon as the last box was taken. That left me to carry Dr Jamie onto shore. He wasn’t too thrilled at the prospect but we managed it ok; I then hooked myself back into my wheels and introduced Dr Jamie to Sarah.
She was ecstatic to have a doctor on site now.
But Kathy came forwards. “Hang on there. We still need to get the Doctor up to speed on what’s happening in the world and then get him settled in an office for now. Let’s get this stuff back up to the building and we’ll make dinner,” she said.
We all deferred to her leadership and started walking back up to the University Center.

Griz & Jazz welcomed Dr Jamie with open hooves and claws. He seemed wary of the talons but still excited to meet a griffon.
Dinner consisted of more pasta in tomato sauce; Kathy still poured a bunch of salt on her’s but not nearly as much as the soups. Dr Jamie pointed it out that neither Sarah nor I had done that. “Side effect of the sickness I got the other night,” she said. He asked if he could examine her after dinner and she agreed. Sarah spoke up and offered to do the dishes.

So now, Kathy is with Dr Jamie in her RV getting her ‘check up’; Griz is changing the water in the pools; Jazz decided to help Sarah with the dishes, and I'm here trying to get some jam-packed days into one entry!
Griz and Jazz say the BC marina will be ready with another day of work but Griz has something else she wants to bring up first thing tomorrow.

Arr matey! I be exhausted from all that! I be hittin’ th’ hay, ‘n I don’t care if Griz’s finished er nah. -Patrick