It may start as an adventure or a sight-seeing trip, but either can quickly and unexpectedly degenerate into something Beyond Chaos.

I remember one time some friends and I started off on an adventure. Wives and sweethearts gathered at the dock to see us off, weeping and waving hankies and small children wondering what was going on. We pushed off, heading for Hannibal, when a violent storm came up. We were tossed about like corks in a blender, lightning striking the water all around us, claps of thunder shaking our frail craft, waves washing over the larboards and ripping the sails from their valance rods. We took in the mizzenhead, backed her, and were breasting a tsunami when a sperm whale stove our good ship in with a fluke slap of a fluke and we were all flung into the raging. white-capped, mountainous, waves. All hands were lost or eaten by ravenous salt-sea sharks save I myself, and I am the only one left to tell the tale.