Sinbad the Sailor: First Voyage part 1(Source)

It’s dark, cold, and ominous. The waves appear to be cliffs rushing toward the ship. The Insurrection’s crew notices a sinking feeling in the pit of their stomachs as they begin to realize that their ship will not make it through the night.

Despite the near impossible task ahead, the captain puts all the men to work. Some men are bailing water for their lives while others try to keep the ship pointed bow first toward the oncoming waves. Everyone stops what they are doing at the sight of a wave bigger than any of them had ever seen. All that can be done at this point is to hang on for dear life and say whatever prayers one might need...

As dawn breaks over a peaceful ocean, Sinbad wakes up in a confused stupor. He takes in his surroundings only to realize that he alone survived the storm. He was fortunate enough to have grabbed ahold of the mast and managed to hang on to it through the night.

Sinbad was sitting on a small crate contemplating his options when he notices a large portion of the ship floating along in the water, so he swims over and climbs on board. Being utterly lost and out of food or water, he decides the only thing to do is lay on the wood and pray that someone comes along or he drifts to some island.

After three days, Sinbad is at his wits end and is beginning to wonder if he should just end it all instead of dying a slow hallucination-filled death. At that exact moment a pod of dolphins swims up to him. They ask his name and what circumstances have led to his current situation. Sinbad tells them of his time aboard the ship and of the great storm that has led to him floating around in the ocean all alone. At the mention of his name, the dolphins' eyes all light up with recognition.

“Are you the great Sinbad?” one dolphin asks.

“That would be me,” replies Sinbad.

The dolphins tell him how they have heard many things about his great travels and tales. They also mention that there is an island not too far away that is inhabited by a friendly people that will take him in.

Sinbad climbs on the back of the strongest dolphin and away they all go. As they swim, Sinbad tells them story after story of his many adventures to pass the time. With each story, their admiration for Sinbad grows as well as his fame. After about an hour with the dolphins, they drop him off on the shores of the island that they tell him is owned by King Mihrage.

This story is based off of Sinbad's First Voyage from The Arabian Nights' Entertainments by Andrew Lang. The original story begins with Sinbad telling another man named Sinbad about how he squandered his wealth inherited from his parents and now goes from ship to ship seeking adventure. He then tells the story of one particular ship he was on that would stop at little islands on the way to the West Indies to trade goods and explore the cities. They then accidentally land on a whale and he gets thrown into the sea. He then lands on some cliffs on an island and climbs up. I chose to head straight into the large storm that tosses Sinbad in the ocean and causes him to float about. The part about the dolphins is based off of one of my favorite songs by Jimmy Buffet called Jolly Mon Sing. In this song a traveling musician gets thrown into the ocean, but a dolphin has heard him singing and loves his voice so he takes him to an island. I thought this would be a fun little twist to the original telling of Sinbad's First Voyage. It also shows Sinbad receiving help to survive instead of him floating around until he washes up on shore. This gives his character a mortality that is not as apparent in the originals.