The islands are one of the most strategic elements of the game, they allow for several things:

Docking : As a free action, a ship touching an island or a fort with its bow is allowed to dock, it then can drop off and board crew or equipment, or transfer crew or equipment to and from another ship docked at the same island. You can't dock at an opponent's home island or at an enemy fort.

Unloading treasure: When you dock at your home island or a fort, you must unload all treasure worth gold points; this is a free action. Treasure unloaded at a fort is placed inside of the fort, and it counts toward victory.

Repairing : The repair action allows a ship docked at her home island or fort to repair (bring back into play) one mast.

Placing islands : For a 40-point game, players must use three islands per player (six islands for two players, nine islands for three players, etc.). If you don't have enough islands, use similarly sized and shaped objects to represent them. Starting with the first player, players take turns randomly choosing an island and placing it on the play area. Islands must be placed at least 3L but not more than 6L from each other. Depending on your own preferences and the number of ships/points you are playing with, players may agree on any starting rules including the setup of the playing area.

Choosing home islands : The last player chooses which island will be the home island of the first player. The first player places his or her ships so that their bows (fronts of the ships) touch that island. The first player then chooses a different island to be the second player's home island, and that player places his or her ships so that their bows touch that island. The remaining player's home islands are chosen in order in this manner. The remaining islands are called wild islands.

When any part of a ship or sea creature moves onto a reef, roll a d6. The result is the reef's rating until the end of that player's turn. Place the die result on the reef to remind you what the rating is. Compare the rating to how many masts or segments the game piece had when it was constructed. If the reef's rating is lower than this number of masts or segments, the game piece has a number of masts or segments eliminated equal to the difference.

For example, if a 3-mast ship sails over a reef with a rating of 4, no masts are eliminated. If a 4- mast ship sails over a reef with a rating of 2, two masts are eliminated. If the reef rating and number of masts or segments are the same, no masts or segments are eliminated.

A game piece that begins its turn on a reef does not have to roll to see if masts or segments are eliminated when it moves off of the reef. If a ship takes more damage than the number of masts remaining as a result of sailing over a reef, she is wrecked and remains on the reef; a wreck blocks movement and lines of fire.

To signify that a ship is a wreck, remove one of her hull pieces. This will cause the ship to “lean” onto the reef and look like she is wrecked there. Any crew or treasure on a wreck remains on the wreck, and wrecks can be explored. Sea creatures that have all their segments eliminated by a reef are removed from the playing area.