Luckily, no accident happened.
Chen Zhou paddled in the water, trying to straighten his back, and seized the rope loop with the momentum of his body floating upwards.
This was much simpler than he had anticipated, so smooth that Chen Zhou found it a bit unbelievable.
After all, according to the original description, Robinson had to exert significant effort to grab the rope loop, not as easily as he did.
Without pondering too much on the reason, clutching the ends of the rope loop, Chen Zhou strived to pull himself out of the seawater while swinging to get closer to the ship's side.
Although he had wasted time in the factory, after all, he was in his twenties, a strong young man, with some strength left in him. With a swing, Chen Zhou found the right timing, kicked with both legs, and landed on the ship's outer wall.
The feeling beneath his feet was somewhat slippery, yet exceptionally solid.
Floating in the water for so long, he finally found a foothold, a support, and the vanished sense of security returned.
Step by step, he climbed up, alternating hands, his palms rubbed raw by the coarse hemp rope.
The bright sun shone on his back, beads of water rolled down his skin, and the breeze brushed past, yet there was no feeling of coolness.
Preoccupied with the climb, the climber paid no heed to hot or cold. With his head lowered, Chen Zhou beheld a new scenery.
Unlike looking up from the ship's bottom, now the mottled hull was beneath his feet, and the situation on this side of the bow was clear at a glance.
The snake-headed bow ram in the front had its paint peeled off, the snake's upper jaw had gone missing, leaving a carved chin full of sharp teeth howling blankly;
The decorative patterns painted below the bulwarks had been washed faded and fragmented by the waves, almost indistinguishable, only showing that yellow and red paint were used;
The bulwark railings on both sides of the deck also showed significant damage, not sure whether caused by the storm or dismantled by sailors to lower lifeboats.
To the right of the tall mainmast, a broken, slanted mast had a rope hanging from it.
A patched sail was spread on the deck, the cable tying the anchor coiled around the winch drum, with the half-person-high anchor suspended on the other side of the bow.
The bow dipped into the seawater, the highest point was about over two meters from the water surface, much shorter than Chen Zhou had initially anticipated, and it didn't take long for him to reach the foredeck.
On the bow, the stench became suddenly intense, as if he had arrived at a rural summer latrine, prompting Chen Zhou to cover his mouth and nose involuntarily.
Looking around, he immediately spotted the source of the foul smell.
It was a chair by the left side railing of the bow, protruding over the ship's edge, hanging over the sea, with an oval hole on the seat, and nearby, some dubious dark brown stains.
Guessing this was the ship's open-air toilet, marvelling at the backwardness of the current maritime living conditions, Chen Zhou instinctively took a few steps toward the foremast.
He was now stark naked, with tolerance for filth sharply reduced, unwilling to inexplicably smear strange things on himself.
According to the pre-arranged plan, the first task upon boarding should be rescuing the food in the cargo hold and any usable seeds.
Then to find paper and ink, quickly drawing out the simple wooden raft design sketched by the forum expert while it was still fresh in his memory, and finally gather tools to start crafting.
But plans can't keep up with changes; Chen Zhou did not expect to lose his underpants while swimming, nor did he anticipate the ship's environment to be this deplorable.
Feeling the scorching sunlight and the seawater rapidly evaporating from his body, Chen Zhou felt that the most urgent thing now was to find some clothes to wear, firstly for sun protection, and secondly to alleviate his discomfort—he had no penchant for streaking.
Simultaneously, he needed to find a pair of shoes to protect his tender feet; otherwise, if he were to step on a wooden splinter or rusted nail while exploring the ship's cabin, potentially catching an infection or dying of tetanus would indeed be a mishap.