As time passed I grew more comfortable with my island home and became somewhat domesticated in the daily routine I followed. I would keep the cottage clean and orderly, I would tend to my vegetable garden, I’d gather the food I would need for that day and maybe the next, and I’d visit with the goats. And, as a force of habit, whenever I was at the seashore, I would look out at the ocean . . . and the horizon beyond . . . in the hope that some ship would appear.
The many possessions I had removed from The Sea Serpent overcrowded the inside of my little cottage and this prompted me to build a storage structure. After removing more lumber from the ship I erected a large shed out behind the house and used it to stow the things I had no immediate need for.
And The Sea Serpent . . . once so proud a vessel . . . gradually gave way to the pounding of the waves and the battering of the hurricanes, and, in time, the brave ship was no more.