Phillip Duddy, old and worn he was, a gray type fellow with the storm in his mind and salt of the sea in his pewter hair. There weren't a place he went without feelin' the rocking, the waves of the ocean like it coarsed through his veins. He was strong enough to tie a bosen's knot with his leathered fingers, but not quite sturdy enough to resist the call of the deep and all her secrets.

His ashen eyes as fogged as the dreary mornin', shag cut hair no better than a street dog's, and beard plus brows a mess of silver wires. There weren't no part of him that weren't shabby and ragged, weren't no part of him that ain't seen the water.

It were so easy to get lost in it, the great expanse and all its treasures, he'd been chasing fish and gulls all his gloomy life it seemed. He held so many trinkets of adventure in his pockets like he'd struck gold by keeping them. But there weren't nothin' special about ol' Philip Duddy. Ain't nothin' at all.