James pursed his lips as he considered the deal. "Or ye could give me that spyglass..."

Norman considered the boy. He could replace the telescope, but not his reputation. Norman could save and buy another one, recording boat details in his notebooks in the meantime. Those were not for sale at any price.

"Alright. The telescope is yours, and this is never to be mentioned again."

Norman collapsed the wooden and brass instrument and proffered it to the lad.

James was so surprised that he almost forgot to take the instrument. He almost felt sorry too. Almost. But then he thought of what a wonderful pirate he would make with this new gadget. He took the telescope and put it in his sack with the rest of his loot. "Thank you, ser. It's a deal. Me lips are sealed," he said all business like. Then he put the sack over his shoulder and walked away as fast as he dared. Wow.

Norman turned away from the lad and looked out to the sea with his own eyes.  The boats were still there, but they were a little harder to see. 

Those large deep sea boats, a schooner far out on the horizon, closer in they had the tiny smacks, - wait a moment, what was that? Instinctively, Norman reached for his pocket to fetch his telescope, but then remembered. Instead, he squinted.  Someone dressed for swimming down there was paddling around just offshore, on what looked like a plank.  How unusual. The squinting hurt his eyes, so he had to look away to refocus, but he soon looked back fixated. He fumbled the pages of his notebook to find the most recent entries, and scribbled:

Mystery person on plank, paddling/swimming? off beach.

Lailani debated simply going back to the beach when she looked out at the water. She began swimming on the board in an attempt to catch what was appearing to be most desirable wave she had seen all day. Desirable in an english sense, no waves could truly compare to the ones she witnessed back home. A smile was plastered on her face as the wave while nothing to write home about, offered enough in size for the woman to stand on her board and surf the meek wave for a moment. However just as miraculous as it started, the wave was gone within a moment leaving Lailani chuckling standing on the beached surfboard before stepping off onto the sand. Well at least she got to surf today.

From his vantage point, Norman watched the plank rider rise to stand and balance as the waves carried them back toward the beach. He had never seen that sort of thing before on the water, and he thought he'd seen everything.  Squinting at the moving figure, all Norman could tell from distance was that they had dark skin, and wait - was that long hair trailing behind? No man would dare have his hair that long, so it must be a woman.  He looked down at the note he hand just written and crossed through it.

Mystery person on plank, paddling/swimming? off beach.

Mystery woman, long hair, dark skin - plank riding(?) off beach. Who is she? 

How he wished he still had his telescope. He finished his note and then returned to stare at the figure in the distance.