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The greybeard to Searos's left shakes his head. "None of us here has coin to spare, really. The only one here who has »a little too much coin for his own good« is you."

"Not that there's nobody in this town who does, though" the lad next to him interjects. "But they won't come gambling" he adds.

Searos ponders the greybeard's comment. "I may have more coin than I need, but I certainly don't have as much as I want, ya feel me?"

To the lad: "Oh? So who are these fun-less individuals who won't go gambling?"

"Well, for one, you will never see one of the council gambling, at least not in the inn" the lad says. "And the shopkeeper and the artisans put up a very serious face, too. I'm not saying they never gamble - who knows what they do behind the closed doors of their homes or the council or guild halls - but they won't gamble with you."

Searos fiddles with a coin in his hand as he ponders the fishermen's words. "Sounds like it would be awful hard to get into whatever games they might be playing. So how have the catches been recently? I've always heard the best place to catch fish is at mouth of one of those sea-line caves. I'll bet if there were anything like that around, you guys would just clean up."

Searos is a little perturbed. If these fishermen know of anything bad going on they don't appear to be letting on. He's not big on the idea of just straight out asking them if any of them are smugglers. There has to be a way to figure this out.

"Sea-line cave mouths? Bah, they are breeding grounds, you'll catch only small fish there" the middle-aged man to Searos's right says. "We never go there. We prefer the open sea. Preferably in good moonlight, then the fish are closer to the surface. Hardly anyone leaves the harbor during new moon, especially double new moon."

The young lad makes a quick movement, but then catches himself.

"Hardly anyone? Seems like, since it is a bad time to go fishing, no one would go out. What manner of man is foolish enough to head out during a double new moon?"

Searos takes note of the young lad but does not direct his question to him.

With a sideways glance to the young lad, one of the older men chuckles and says "Well, the young folk sometimes take a boat out on double new moon to be together unobserved..."

"Trying to show the old men up, eh?"

The young man blushes, but stands his ground. "No, it is more a question of getting privacy in a small village. Not that it would really work" he says with a dark look at the man who gave him away.

"I did row out at the last double new moon, in the company of a young woman. That's what they're hinting at."

Searos chuckles a bit at that. "You know, I never had that idea. Thats pretty clever though. Say, I've heard that others are out there on a double new moon night. You ever see anybody else out there?"

The lad looks at the other men who are wearing a wide grin on their faces, then walks out of their midst pas Searos, motioning him to join him, goes over to a low wall near the pier and sits down, looking at Searos.

Searos pats the older men on the shoulder. "Fear not gentlemen. It appears wooing a young lady a young man's game." He follows.

The lad looks at Searos approaching and motions for him to sit next to him.
"There's a girl I fancy, and because we wanted to be alone, I took one of the small boats last time Luna was in low light, and it was cloudy then, too, and I rowed us out a bit on the inlet so we could talk. We want to marry, you know, but her parents say we are to young and even Ara tells us we need to make some money first so we can afford our own household. Well, she's right, I guess, so we are both working hard. But that's not what I wanted to tell you.

When we were out, at some point the boat started moving like in the wake of a large ship. We looked up, but there were no position lights. And generally, ships avoid the inlet when there's no light from Luna, there are shallows and cliffs underwater. And... well, we couldn't be sure we hadn't set the boat rocking by ourselves, you understand?" the lad blushes, but continues valiantly. "We didn't tell anyone at first. But now, with rumours of the smugglers, I can't help thinking it perhaps was their ship."

"If the inlet is as dangerous as you say it is, wouldn't someone with a lot of familiarity with it be needed to safely traverse it in such conditions?"

"Well, I wouldn'd say it is dangerous, but not so easy if you have starlight only. I guess any good sailor could do it with some instructions. There are a few landmark cliffs that help, and when you're under oars and have someone fathom the depth, you should be OK. But fishermen don't go out on moonless nights, and there are not many other ships that come to Saltmarsh. So it would be a perfect time for smugglers. Especially if they wait a little outside and use small boats to go to the sea caves."