Thoughts on the first chapter:
1. First few paragraphs are pure exposition dump. Not the best way to start. Also the perspective seems inconsistent, e.g. "Merchants occasionally came to our island ..." when much of the rest is third person. In revision, I would advise starting closer to when the action begins, which is Dai discovering the letter.
2. The exposition creates incongruities and is oddly vague. How old is Dai? He's a "child," so did he get to spend much time with his mother before her death? How long has it been since she died and he's suffered being in the orphanage? How did he even know things like the church threatening to use her body as repayment for her debts? You're making him aware of implications he's probably too young to understand.
3. What's the education like on Saltwater Bay (which is an island)? A key point of this first chapter is him reading the letter from his mother. If this is some provincial backwater, where did he learn to read? Is there a public school? I doubt this negligent orphanage is providing an education.
Even though I didn't like the opening being an exposition dump, I did like you giving this theme of him looking to the horizon and being apart from the other kids, who just wanted to fish. Try to keep that as a theme throughout. Maybe ditch the vague abusive orphanage cliche and instead have it be that they force the kids to labor for the fishermen, and since Dai hates fish(ing) he's bullied and outcast. But he does like sailing and being out on the water, as it gets him closer to that "out there." Is the island in a larger bay, and he can glimpse the mainland when he's on the water?
Which brings me to the gist of my advice. It's something a lot of writer struggle with at the start. I did, too. That's not to put your ideas in bottles
www.scribblehub.com
