Back in the desert, I looked for a place where I haven’t been, that I could reach with the clawshots. The map showed a part of the map that led to a huge question mark, so it wasn’t that hard to figure out where to go.
I ended up in an area with a Goron and a gossip stone. The gossip stone told me there’s a dragon somewhere in the desert that will test you. If you pass his test, you’ll get the strongest shield available.
I don’t think I’m able to do that just yet, but I’ll keep that in mind. I talked to the Goron, named Golo. He is researching the dragon and is working on a (future) path, presumably which leads to the dragon. He asked for a donation and I gave it to him.
Anyway, he pointed me in the direction of the sacred flame. He said I had to go to the Lanayru Sand Sea. It was once an ocean, but all the water evaporated, so now it’s all sand. But conveniently enough, there was a ship there with one of those time shifting stones on it. After hitting it, the area was transported into the past and water appeared. The skipper of the boat also came to life. He said we needed the sea chart in his shack at Skipper’s Retreat, so we headed there.
Thankfully, the boat didn’t use motion controls like the dragon-flying and swimming parts do. Being on the boat reminded me a bit of Wind Waker. Once I got there, I had to make my way up a bunch of stone pillars to reach the skipper’s house.
After getting the sea chart, I headed back down to the boat. Fortunately, I could zip line back down, which made it a much quicker trip on the way down.
The skipper compared his sea chart to my map, which revealed a new area that wasn’t on my map. I went there and arrived at the shipyard. It has mine cart tracks that look like roller coaster tracks. Is this Zelda or Donkey Kong Country? I stopped and saved my game, but I’ll see what the tracks are all about next time.