Over the weekend, I had some time to begin exploring ships in Black Desert Online. I mainly wanted to try out AFK fishing in the Ross Sea, which I heard could be pretty lucrative.

Knowing this was not going to be fishing in a safe area, I chose to level a whole new character and stop her at 49 just to be my ocean fisher. I’m glad that I did – more on that later, though.

From the Shakatu’s seals we got during the transfer and anniversary celebration, I picked up a Epheria Sailboat. I have some interest in possibly bartering on down the line, but for now, I just wanted to try fishing in the sea off of Port Epheria, which I’ve heard was safe from monsters. This is because at level 49, I don’t believe my fishing character can actually work the canons on the ship and defend from ocean monsters. So sailing further and exploring all of that will have to be done on another character someday.

The actual mechanics of sailing are very easy in BDO. Nothing confusing about how to get the boat to move. You do have to buy “rations” while in port before the ship can leave the dock – I guess you can consider it like fuel in a way. There’s also a sailor system, but I didn’t look into that since I wasn’t planning on sailing all that far.

Once you get out into the Ross Sea (and beyond) you’re in uncharted territory. You have to uncover the fog of war on the map and you have no icon to know your location. You also can’t use the automapping features to get back to port. I think there’s a way to see where you are in the sea (compass?), though I never went deep enough that I couldn’t use island landmarks to get me back to port again.

My entire goal was to get one zone out, just a bit inside the Ross Sea, to fish. This “distance” would make the fish I brought back to port worth more. Also, out on the sea, fish seem always abundant, so AFK fishing was always at its fastest times.

My fishing character, Finch, went out there with zero fishing experience and a handful of buffs they’ve handed out over the past few weeks. After a couple sessions, she’s now mid-Skilled rank at fishing and has brought in over 9 million silver in fish profit alone (not counting the crystal shards I’ve sold). She is decently geared for lifeskilling with a Balenos +10 rod, so that helps lend to the leveling.

At first, I went back and forth on whether I wanted to use Finch for fishing as I did have Amon at Skilled fishing due to time he’s spent AFK fishing in Grana. Everyone I’ve heard from says not to worry about taking a level 50+ character out into the ocean – that people fish for hours and hours and have never seen a PKer.

Well.

My very first night fishing, I was sailing back for the dock to unload. As I did, I noticed a squat little boat attempting to cross paths with mine. I was on autopath, so I veered away a bit to give them room. That’s when I saw I was being targeted, and that ship fired canons at mine.

My ship took a bit of damage from the attack. But, they only fired on me once – my thoughts are they saw they couldn’t hit me and decided it wasn’t worth it to keep chasing. So I’m fairly sure they were after a PK there. Had I not be under level 50, they would have had their PK, or they would have beat up my ship pretty badly as I tried to escape. I have no clue how to defend myself on a ship.

I guess I keep running into these so-called rare PKers who don’t exist. This is the fourth time someone’s tried to kill me in this game. Only once has actually been successful – the time I dumbly went AFK horse training on a server that phased into Node Wars. I guess everyone can be killed in Node Wars, even if you’re under level 50. Had no idea – live and learn and stay clear of any server with a number 1 after its name.

Anyhow, the rest of the time I’ve spent out at sea has been uneventful. I’ve seen other ships in my area, likely fishing like I am, and no one has bothered me.

Though my first time out, I almost beached my own ship, which was extremely frustrating! I accidentally ran aground on a sand bar and couldn’t find a way off – not even jumping into the ocean and “calling” my ship worked. I began to think I’d have to buy that SOS loyalty item just to get free, but then a game blip disconnected me from BDO. When I logged back in, my boat wasn’t quite in the same location as it was before, and that gave me just enough wiggle room to rock it off the sandbar, thank goodness! Now, I’m super careful about coming near anything that looks like it could snag my ship underneath.

The only other exciting thing this weekend was getting my Narchillan gear quests done. I’ll have to talk about that in another post, however!