Saga is politely trying to not show how much she dislikes and fears the idea of pirates, and the change of the topic is greatly helping it.
"An owl? " She clears her throat and tries to look a bit more like a professional person or whatever. "Uh... hydroponics? Can you tell me more?" she asks.
"We grow plants in greenhouses without soil, providing the water and nutrients they need directly by punping liquid to the roots, and using specialised sunlight lamps we found on the mainland during the winter months. It uses a lot of electricity, but we generate that with wind and waves, the two things we have no shortage of."
"Oh? The currents are much warmer down there, hmm hmm?" Doc is intensely focused on Oliver now. "Many issues with sea beasts?"
Oliver's first mistake, of course, was mentioning fishing. But Doc's not going to mention the fish exactly.. he's already gotten in trouble once today.
"Loads of the duckers. But the British have always been a naval people, so we're always killing the bastards for control of our waters, "They've taken our lands, but they're not ducking taking our waters as well" as some put it. In fact " He starts drawing on the other side of the serviette "the flag of the navy is the image of a badger ripping out a sea beast's throat over the union jack."
THAT guy again? WTF!
Oh. Wait. It's all of them. Not creepy, then; just awkward.
GREAT.
Marianne turns away and does a bad job of hiding the fact that she's taking a huge swig from her bottle of vodka, then puts it away and reluctantly sits down next to Harald. The kitten chooses that moment to escape from her pocket again, climb onto the table, and scream.
Oliver reaches out and strokes the kitten, saying
"There, there, hush now, you'll disturb everyone's lunch, little furball", and turns to Marianne, enquiring
"Why do you have a kitten in your pocket?"