It's Just Like A Story By That Poe Chap

People who are supposed to be dead keep popping up quite alive and a little irked that their funerals are are so ill-attended. Fortunately, UNlike a common theme in the collected works of Edgar Allen Poe's, no one was actually buried alive, or to be accurate, buried at sea alive. Even without Stupid George sewed to the deadcaul, it's a positive development.

In other words, it's time to loose the cats of joy again, for Thesaurus was only mostly dead. Huzzah!

Of course, the really interesting thing is that all of the crew (and a valiant and fully recovered Bob) are sitting on a rented schooner a few hundred yards offshore, ostensibly performing the traditional "sailor's last rites." But in actuality, they're gossiping about Sybil, theoretical Conchan virgins,* and whether the palace chef might meet with a convenient work-related fatal injury. So now Gus has the old whaler's problem to consider: follow the dangerous whale-road, or opt for the cushy berth ashore.

In Owyhee, in old Mowee to be exact, the old-time whalers used to raise hell and generally be rips and tearaways with the local girls. Eventually, each man (and indeed, each skipper) would have to decide whether to follow the whales back to the frozen, icy North to their feeding grounds each season, or stay in the warm, seductive tropical climes and eat coconuts and breadfruit all winter. In the local lingo, mauka means "toward the mountains" and makai means "toward the sea." To this day if you ask for directions in the charming dear Islands, instead of "turn right" or "go east" you might hear "At the junction go makai, then turn right and go mauka at the big church."
So we wait with bated breath (I'm not falling for that one again, dear Bard) to see which way he'll go. Mauka, or makai?

*Nelson - ever the eternal optimist - is obviously still in recruitment mode.