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Santa Maria Pirate Weekend, September 2011 - Columbus, OH
(Photo: Mission)
The Santa Maria - our home for the weekend.
Chapter 1st: The surgeon's arrival on the Santa Maria on
Saturday morning; of lifting a cannon to the quarterdeck; some comments on the
crew and meeting a new crew member; a discussion of some of the many displays that the
pirates engaged in for the public and the Saturday battle.
I arrived bright and early Saturday morning... well, that's a lie. I arrived around 10am, somewhat bright (according to my SAT scores) yet certainly not early. The crew had vastly expanded with the arrival of several people who I'll introduce in due course. We had brought my new and improved surgeon's box-o-crap shipping crate down to the ship on Friday night while Kate, George and I were waiting for Michael to show up. As soon as I looked at it sitting there on the ship's deck, I realized that I had left the keys to the lock on the crate back in the hotel room. So I had a nice (by which I mean tedious) walk to my hotel.
(Photo: Karen Arnold)
The capstan as it
currently appears.
(Photo: Frankenstein)
The capstan as it would
appear with arms
and medical skills.
On the ship, Mark Gist was working with Bryan and Thomas to get his cannon up to the quarterdeck of the ship, using a length rope.Someone who was watching them engage in this process with me asked
me why they didn't use the capstan to do it. The capstan is a roundish thing that resides
next to my surgeon's table. I usually rest my Patrick Hand Original Planter's Hat atop of it as you can see at left.
Although this is not at all relevant, the captan looks a lot like the medical droid FX-7 from the Star Wars series, which is why I don't
mind it being in my area. (Well, that and it's permanently mounted to the ship and it makes
a nice hat stand.) A capstan is used to haul heavy things around the ship
via a process that wikipedia
doesn't explain well enough for me to reword it here so that I can look smart. (Curiously,
there is a very good explanation written on canvas on the ship, but I don't have the photo
handy to refer you to it.) Anyhow, I answered the questioner that the capstan wasn't really
hooked up for actual use, although I have no idea whether that's true or not.
You may wonder why I am including all these photos of the hauling up of the cannon at all. Mostly it's because it seems to me that this is just the sort of thing which would have happened during this time period and I happened to have taken several of them doing it. So just enjoy the photos and don't ask why I include things any more as it gives me a headache.
 (Photo: Mission's Collection) |
 (Photo: Mission's Collection) |
 (Photo: Mission's Collection) |
(Photo: Terry Smith)
You may also be wondering why Mark was hauling the cannon up to the quarterdeck in the first place. For this, I have an answer: he
planned to do cannon drills up there with the kids. Mark started doing cannon drills at the
Pirate Fest in Put-in-Bay
this year and continued to do them with the kids who showed up
at Brigand's Grove.
Since they seemed work pretty well, he decided to teach kids to fire cannon on
the deck of the Santa Maria at this event. Unfortunately, that required hauling the cannon up onto the
deck. Fortunately, no one asked me to help.
You may be curious about the advisability of teaching kids to fire large projectile shooting weapons, but I don't. Not a bit. (Better they follow the procedure than just do the thing willy-nilly.) So Mark trained the tots to fire the cannon during the weekend. Michael Bagley also got into the act as you can see in the photo below right.
There was actually a great deal of involvement from the pirates in manning displays during the weekend. Since we only had about 10 or so pirates added to the regular Santa Maria tour guide George, Eileen and Sarah, the involvement ratio was higher - people crossed between the various presentation stations to explain things. I would have to say this was one of the highest presentation involvements we've had yet on the Santa Maria in my experience.
 (Photo: Terry Smith) |
 (Photo: Mission's Collection) |
(Photo: Terry Smith)
One of the great new ideas for the ship came from our newest Mercury Crew
member, Bryan. He suggested that we create "some
"official" Santa Maria pyrate certificates. We could sign the kid's name
on the certificate and give them to the kids take home as a part of their visit." Trish ran
with this idea adding the concept of wax seals and a treasure
chest full of pirate items from which the kids could select after joining our crew.
At the same time, Disney came to Linda Ketcham and gave her POTC4 movie posters along with a couple of sets of the POTC DVDs. Linda decided to give the posters to the kids and auction off the DVD sets. So Trish and her crew at the table collected the adult's names and phone numbers on entries for the drawing of the DVD sets. It was a great idea and very well received by the public. (So much so that I can't think of anything funny to say about it here. Sorry.) At right you see the certificate Bryan made up - they gave out over 200 of them.
Below left is certificate project leader Trish hard at work melting wax for the seals. (Note that you also see the fire box right close behind her candle. Funny about that.) George and Dan were among the folks who helped out on this project. Between them all, they actually ran out of wax and had to go and buy more on Saturday night.
 (Photo: Terry Smith) |
 (Photo: Mission's Collection) |
 (Photo: Mission's Collection) |
(Photo: Trish Gallatin)
Usually pop-culture references are things I throw in here for no reason other
than they amuse me, but this weekend we had a genuine pop-culture reference as
part of the event. Those of you who have been following these Journals for a few years
will immediately recognize the Brain Gremlin model because he has come up several times
over the years. It all started at Paynetown in 2009 when I saw Dan Needham's handiwork
on a Mr. Incredible action
figure that he had turned into a pirate. Dan agreed to take on the Brain Gremlin project for me, so I
presented him with my resin Mohawk model at the Santa Maria event in September of 2009.
(Finding the rest of the references to this charming creature in the previous Surgeon's
Journals seems an exercise best left to the reader. This is mostly because searching for those
pages and popping reference links into them seems tedious to me.)
Dan finished remaking Mohawk and painting him like the Brain Gremlin in anticipation of this event. Although some of the detail is lost here, I think we can all appreciate how beautiful the final result is. Well, maybe you don't think it's beautiful, but I do. (Upon posting photos of the Brain Gremlin in her rearview mirror on Facebook, someone commented on Kate Bagley's wall that, "My seven year old self is peeing my pants." Now what kind of response is that? Seriously, I don't know what's wrong with people today. He is nothing short of amazingly well-done. Once we Michael gets clothes made for him and I find the right prescription glasses for him, he'll be the spitting image of the brain gremlin, who is urbane and witty. Besides, he makes a fine surgeon's mate as I explained in the Prologue.
 (Photo: Mission) The Brain Gremlin artiste... |
 (Photo: Mission's Collection) The Brain Gremlin tailor |
 (Photo: Mission's Collection) The Brain Gremlin keeper |
(Photo: Mission's Collection)
Jennie explains the game of Goose to Bryan.
Another great suggestion for a display this weekend was the inclusion of games. Sailors apparently
played games when nothing else was going on, so Jennie Gist suggested that we have someone show
the kids games that were played and maybe play a few of the simpler ones with them if
their interest held. Bryan decided to take lead on this display. I would have done it except I am the
surgeon and I'd rather do something that places a table full of sharp implements between me
and any given group of children.
Several people period games with them and they were set out on a table to
be shown to the people touring the Santa Maria. Jennie brought one of the first widely circulated
board games called Goose, which you see her explaining to Bryan at left.
Bryan also played chess with Thomas' daughter (right) and Mike
(below left). I didn't get a chance to talk with 
(Photo: Mission's Collection)
Thomas and his daughter at games.
Mike at all or I'd tell you something interesting about him. (I am resisting my usual tendency to
make things up.) I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Mike had scheduled a game of chess
with Bryan ahead of time and, having finished that, decided that was enough pirating for him for
one day because he disappeared not long after that from what I can tell.
The pirates really enjoyed the games as you can see below center. In that photo we have (from left) Sarah, who works on the Santa Maria, Bryan, George and his sister Eileen, who both work for the Santa Maria as well. Oh, and there's some little girl who kept wanting to play. They quickly got rid of her. (I'm kidding! She wouldn't go away!) Eventually it was decided to let the kids play as you can see below right. Actually, Bryan taught dozens of moppets the gambling/drinking game of Put and Take, the rules of which I sort of explained in the Brigand's Grove Journal. He used fake gold and silver coins instead of period-correct Cheez-Its (or EUF Bits.)
 (Photo: Mission's Collection) |
 (Photo: Mission's Collection) |
 (Photo: Terry Smith) |
This brings us to the Saturday battle. We were required to stick to a pretty
simple battle plan for the weekend because any complex battle plan would have
required more pirates. A crew of four was sent out in
the Green Black Sheep to attack and fire upon the Santa Maria
while the rest of the People remained aboard to defend the ship and instruct the
audience in how to use pikes to help in the defense. No one was able to board
the ship this time as we have in the past, so we basically trolled back and
forth in front of the Santa Maria and
fired on her. The Rieske family cannon crew was in place to return fire from their
shore battery. (Their shore battery being a single cannon, it was really only a AA battery --
but a very noisy one.)
(Photo: Mission's Collection)
Being the gunner on the Green Black Sheep, I was part of the pirate
attack crew. We paddled out from under the nearest bridge after firing the deck gun
I was manning. The report of the deck gun reverberated loudly under the bridge. Mark
Gist claimed he had packed the charges with less powder the May event, but
it made a lot of noise. Michael told me he had used a different powder. Since
I don't know much about black powder, all I can tell you is that he had used something
with either more or less F's than he had used the last time. Point being, it was a
very satisfying sound and my ears were ringing.
I also managed to put a few more burn holes in my nice blue shirt. I figured out that if I was a little more careful in priming the touchhole of the gun, it didn't kick back quite as many sparks. This may either be a good or bad thing, depending on how realistic you think my shirt looks with all those little black pinholes in it.
On our way paddling over to the ship, we were passed by a kayaker who said, "Don't worry, I'll go get you guys reinforcements!" as he whizzed by. So we shot him. Ha ha! I am again kidding, of course! (We didn't have any bullets.)
 (Photo: Mission's Collection) Michael pulling for the ship |
 (Photo: Mission's Collection) Catching them unawares |
 (Photo: Mission) A kayaker offers to help |
(Photo: Mission's Collection)
It was a lively (aka noisy) battle, but in the end we ran out of powder and that was
pretty much the end of it. I only got a few photos of what went on and Terry (the other
primary photographer for this Journal) lost the photos he shot while downloading them,
so you only get what you can see here. Suffice it to say that all the pirates were involved
in this battle because 1) It's a battle involving firing black powder weapons. 2) There were
less than a dozen of us requiring all hands to participate and 3) It's a battle involving
firing black powder weapons!
When we pulled the Green Black Sheep back to its dock, we found someone's
wife and child waiting for our return. We have no idea whose wife and child it was,
but there they were, waiting. The little girl was clearly in costume, although I am not sure
what sort of pirate wears a pink dress with shiny purple plastic necklaces. We docked the
Green Black Sheep and the battle was over.