Map (Menu)

Maps
If you press the sea chest to bring up the menu bar, there is a button near the top for maps. Pressing this will bring up a map window. If you just started the game, you'll see Port Royale in the center of the map with a light blue arrow icon. This blue arrow is not a "you are here" arror, rather it's just marking the fact that Port Royale is the capital. You are wherever the map is centered. Unless you scroll it...

Scrolling
If you right click and drag you can move the map around to see the entire sea. Unfortunately, there are no real markers on the map to get your bearings. Be careful not to left click on the map, unless you want to teleport!

Teleporting
If you left click any island on the map, you will teleport to it. It looks like your pirate is defeated or something, and you'll get a loading screen while you teleport to the new island. There doesn't seem to be any detrimental effect or limitations on doing this. I wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't just something in the beta for testing purposes, it seems like cheating to just *poof* move to any island at any time. If you're having trouble escaping the jail, you can use this trick to get to out of jail after you've exited both doors you can teleport anywhere you like.

Switching servers
At the top you'll see three different icons, one of them determines which server you're connected to. If you click it, a list will pop up and show you which seas (servers) are available. By each sea is a number, which is the number of other players currently connected there. By going to a high population server you'll have more lag, but it will be easier to assemble a crew. A low pop server won't lag as bad, but playing by yourself isn't as much fun.

Compass
There is a compass at the top right corner of your screen. Other players show up as green dots, and enemies you can fight show up as red. Unfortunately, no terrain seems to show up, which can make finding your way difficult at times. There is a pointer that indicates North. Quest locations are supposed to show up as yellow dots, but this seems very flaky right now.