Skullduggery in Motion- Deleted Content from Saltwater Tears

Now that all the synopses of Saltwater Tears and Istanbul Intrigue have been added, I thought it might be helpful to illustrate a flaw of my campaign preparation. I tend to overthink my campaigns and I get far too ambitious for the amount of time I have to run the game.In this case, I had to cut a number of side plots, encounters and even the main plot line.
As a warning for others (and to remind myself of this foible), here is some of the content cut from the campaign.

Deep at the bottom of the Mediterranean Zat, a powerful Efreet, lies trapped in a prison of bubbles and currents. A rogue French admiral leading a crew of pirates on a legendary ship, the  Poisson Rouge, is searching for Zat in the hope of enslaving him to power his ship.
The admiral was going to be an Eldren who served under Napoleon and refused to surrender. He terrorized English shipping in the Mediterranean with a magically enhanced ship. My intent was to have the player’s encounter a wreck caused by the  Poisson Rouge, later have to run from the Rouge, and at the climax fight ship to ship over Zat’s prison.
If the players released Zat and set him free, the efreet would grant them 3 wishes (there were 5 players). I wrote up a few rules for the wish such as cannot use the words “and” and “or”, cannot change past or future, and no wishing for more wishes.
Additionally, with a successful Lore roll I would give a little advice for dealing with djinns. The simpler the wish, the less the interested the djinn will be in corrupting the wish. Djinn love a challenge, so the more a petitioner tries to make an ironclad wish that cannot turn out wrong the harder the djinn will try to find loophole.

A ship in the convoy, the Penguin, is on a secret mission to look for Zat and has diving equipment to look for the djinn. The crew hopes to capture Zat to empower an experimental military airship.
I wanted to add some mystery to the convoy. The players would notice that the crew on the Penguin is secretive and some odd equipment would be on their deck. During the fight, the Penguin could be distracted by their mission or be able to help if the players come up with any crazy ideas using diving equipment.

The Purser has contacts in every port. He leaves every port with cargo to smuggle. Players may be able to help.
Before the cuts, there was a lot more shore leave. I wanted to give the players lots of time to explore and get into trouble. The ship was going to stop in Algeria, Malta, and Crete on the way to Istanbul. After cuts, Malta was the only stop remaining.
Many of these sub plots would have involved some time in port to find some item needed. I thought a shifty officer could open up some criminal enterprises and give the players a starting goal in every port to lead to adventure.

A midshipmen was a crewmen on a boat sunk by the  Poisson Rouge. He wants revenge and he has a plan.A little bit of this made it in at the climactic fight. I gave the plan to the captain of the Unicorn and he tasked the players to carry it out. They released the Elemental spirit powering the ship and the spirit tore the ship apart.

A sea hag appears to give the sailors fortune and make some money. Careful not to insult her.
No part of this made it in. I wanted to pull in some sailing superstitions through a small nautical curse or blessing. I’ll use it someday.

A fellow crewman has a terrible aversion to crustaceans, too bad he attracts them. Like the sea hag, none of this made it in. I was going to give this plot to an NPC the players liked and would want to help. There were a few candidates, but like the rest it had to be cut.

Looking over this list, it’s not as bad as I thought. Some these ideas are good and I will use them later. Others would have been fun, but I don’t regret their cutting. I am glad the campaign didn't end with the wishes. Who knows where the players would have ended up with that opportunity!
It is obvious I did not learn from my last overambitious campaign as I’m doing it all over again right now, but I suppose it’s better to have a stock of surplus good ideas, than a lack of them.