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Fort Taylor Pyrate Invasion/ Pirates in Paradise Celebration
Nov/Dec 2011 - Key West, FL
Chapter 7th: Finding out a bit about Diosa's friend "Joe"; Quite a bit about Jack Roberts; Yet another trip to have Corn and Crab Chowder with Stynky; The waitress; Being cursed by Caribbean Pearl (well, being FORMALLY cursed); Meeting Foxy Gengen; Talking with Apple Booty; The splendidly executed Sunday battle and the differences between the Brits and the Pirates.
Photo: Mission
Joe and me. (I think he's holding me up here...)
The very first thing that happened on Sunday was that Diosa's friend whom I was calling "Joe" came up to me and
introduced himself. He had actually read the on-line Journal on a wireless device and wanted to tell me his name.
It's kind of funny how much things have changed in the 5 years I have been doing this event. The first PiP Journal
from 2007 was for people who couldn't come; no one at the event saw it until they got home. Now with the iPads,
smart phones and such, everyone can read it the minute it's posted. People actually come up to me in the fort and tell me how
funny this or that comment was! (Thus proving how bad their taste in humor is.)
As it turns out, Diosa's companion "Joe" is actually named... Joe! (Now the quotes can be removed from the rest of the Journal. Yay, Joe! You've achieved Officious Recognition!) His pirate name is Antonio Gumbatz. That's sort of fun to say, isn't it? Gumbatz...
Photo: Mission
Bye, guys... (You should stay next time.)
Jack, Mae and Brig had a 8 or 9 hour drive home, so they were leaving. *sniff* I had several interesting conversations
with Jack this weekend about his re-enacting plans that I wanted to relate and this seems like a good place to do that.
Jack is the Archangel's Quartermaster and was telling me about some of his fascinating research on
victualing a ship. He explained that there were all sorts of
Photo: Beowulf
Jack. Just imagine him...
documents out there on the food that would be required
for naval ships, but he was targeting merchant ships (which are purported to have had better food than the navy.)
I've also been gathering info on the shipboard food since it plays an important role in the health of the crew. I'm not entirely sure that the food on merchant ships was so great. John Woodall talks for at least 30 pages in his sea surgeon's manual about constipation. Since Woodall wrote it for the East India Company, the food may not have been all that much better than the British Royal Navy.
Photo: Beowulf
...as a fop like the Viceroy!
Jack is also working on a fop character who is the son of a manure seller. Apparently this character is a tailor,
a role which allows him to sew the sorts of finery required for a fop on a limited budget.
Jack admitted that he thought it would be fun to give the Viceroy a run for fop money. He also explained that he was planning to shave his beard for the role, which I can't imagine. (I mean, I know he can't have been born with that beard, but for the 5 years that I've known him, he's always had it.)
He and Captain Sterling have worked out some sort of intricate history for the relationship between his tailor dandy and the Captain which he explained to me. (I don't remember much of it. It was wonderfully complex. It seems to me that it involved their fathers knowing one another and possibly one working for the other.) I am always amazed by people who come up with these elaborate backstories. As creative as I have been accused of being, Mission's backstory is that he got captured by the pirates on the Mercury. The end.
I set up my surgeon's stuff after which Michael Bagley and Stynky grabbed me so that Stynky could get his required
daily allowance of Rum Barrel Corn and Crab Chowder. It was nearly noon and they were in a huge hurry to leave.
Photo: Mission
Michael has some leadership role in the pirate small arms corps. He may even have been in charge of it, although
several different people seemed to be in charge of it, so who can say? Whatever the case, he had to be on the battlefield
much before the 2 o'clock start time meaning we had to leave for lunch NOW.
Stynky also has a role, although he didn't need to be there as early as Michael. Me? Even when I am supposed to be there, I am occasionally not - as the infamous 2007 Surgeon's PiP trip to B.O.s Fish Wagon will attest. Point being (yes, there is a point) Michael and Stynky were in a mad rush so I did my best to pretend I was too. (I wasn't.) We were a well-oiled machine, we were, with Stynky dropping us at the door, giving us his order (although it was pretty obvious by now) and rushing off to park his car.
Photo: Mission
Our waitress was a Russian girl named Tanya. She told me where she was from in Russia, but I don't remember where
that was exactly. She asked us where we were from and of course Stynky's answer was pretty confusing since he has
lived nearly everywhere in the country, possibly in two or more places at the same time under various aliases. When
he mentioned California, she lit up and told us a little of her family that lived there. While you may not think this
is the best Journal fodder ever, I personally find the routes wait-people take to get the Key West sort of
fascinating. Plus the photo features a neat boat frame that is chained to the ceiling in the restaurant for some
reason. It sort of looks like a boat skeleton and regular readers know how I like skeletons.
The meal went like clockwork. (Why shouldn't it? We had practiced this yesterday. Stynky should be certified as an expert on having corn and crab chowder from the Rum Barrel by now.) We were back in plenty of time to sit around and wait at the fort for 45 minutes. There was some hold up on getting the pirate's supply of black powder cartridges to them and everyone was stuck sitting in the common tent in the fort while they waited.
Photo: Mission
A thorough band of rogues - Pearl, Stynky and Mike
I took this opportunity to chat with some folks. Caribbean Peal was dressed as Tia Dalma (which
I had heard figured into the plot of the day's battle, although it turns out that this was not true.) Pearl makes a
wonderful Tia Dalma. Add her rapid-fire Puerto-Rican-spiced accent to the mix and you've really got something.
I asked her to pose with Mike the Skeleton Pirate and Stynky. I said, "Wow!
Three camera hogs in one photo."
Photo: Mission
The black smudge
That isn't quite what I meant, but once you say something stupid like that you
just have to go with it. I was really trying to say that these three were in a lot of photos. They usually posed just
so when they did it from what I'd seen. How you get to 'camera hog' from there, I don't know. Stynky knew I was fooling around, Mike seemed slightly wounded by the comment (Sorry,
Mike!) and Caribbean Pearl was just ticked off. So she started hexing me in her wonderfully accented English. She came over and started chatting in a friendly way until she saw the opportunity to smudge my palm black. "Ha!
I trick you! I was just trying to give you the black spot for calling me camera hog!" Then off she went to pose
with some tourists.
I was sitting next to a very vivid woman with red hair who called herself Foxy Gengen. She noted with despair that she couldn't find any photos of her with her weapons during the battle last year. I said I was pretty sure she was in last year's Surgeon's Journal. (Although after looking, I see that I was mistaking her for another red-haired woman named Octavia Bordeaux. Sorry Foxy!) She pointed out a particular weapon on her belt of which she was particularly proud: a curved knife that her grandfather had purchased in India decades ago (below center.)
Foxy said she was a member of Drake's crew or something like that. She and her boyfriend belong to something called a Pirate Social Club in Fort Myers, Florida called the Harbingers. She explained that the bandanna wrapped around her leg (seen below right) represented the Harbinger crest. It must be quite the thing because she told me it currently has over 300 members. I asked what was involved in joining such a group and she explained, "You have to go through an initiation. All you have to do is be flogged and drink with the crew and you're in!" She proudly informed me that she was one of only three girls to be an official harlot for the club. Not being sure how to respond to that, I headed back to the surgeon's table.
Photo: Mission Foxy Gengen on the battlefield |
Photo: Mission Foxy's grandfather's curved knife |
Photo: Mission
The Harbinger bandana |
While they were waiting for battle, the various forces posed for group shots, which were kind of neat as you'll see below.
Photo: Mission |
Photo: Caribbean Pearl |
The powder eventually arrived and we headed out to the battlefield. I decided to sit on the British side today. I have never hung out with the British and I wanted to remedy that. The Brits had four cannons with accompanying contingents of smartly-dressed red coat cannon crew members. Chad and Sansanee were on one crew. Chrispy was with another crew. And Beowulf had joined a crew! In fact, he was announcing commands and lighting the cannon once the battle started.
Photo: Caribbean PearlChad and Sansanee, British cannoneers |
Photo: MissionChrispy servicing the mortar |
Photo: MissionBeowulf oversees his cannon crew |
Photo: Mission
It is a very different feel on the British side (as it
should be.) There was a great deal more formality and presentation. It practically felt oppressive when compared
with hanging out on the pirate side. It was far, far different than my experience in 2007 when it was Mark
Moss and me manning one cannon and two other redcoats manning the other. (I didn't even have a red coat!)
Speaking of Mark, I don't even know if he was around for the cannon battles this year. The only time I only saw him when he worked the front gate of the fort yesterday. He was wearing his white British crew breeches, so he may have been on the British cannon side on Saturday. When I saw him, he was wearing what can only be described as the world's strangest wig. (Actually it was a mask tipped onto his head, but doesn't it look like some kind of wig?)
Photo: Mission
The British performed a presentation of their cannon crews. Each crew lined up beside their cannon while the Viceroy
was led down the line of soldiers by Gareth. Gareth was in charge of the British cannon crews. There's probably a
title for him too, but I sure don't know what it is. We'll just call him the gun captain.
As the Viceroy strode down the line he asked various soldiers if they were happy, if the food was good, if their boots were comfortable and so forth. They all replied affirmatively, mainly because Gareth had told them right before this that they were to reply affirmatively to the Viceroy's questions. And maybe throw something in about how the gun captain should really be better paid.
Photo: MissionGareth and the Viceroy inspecting |
Photo: MissionThe Viceroy patronizing Sansanee |
Photo: MissionThe Viceroy chastening someone |
Photo: Mission
Apple Booty and Deadeye.
I happened to know the battle plan (from the safety meeting, naturally) and it involved me dying if I took the field.
What with my sore shoulder and wrist, I decided not to take the field except to snap some photos. Apple Booty was
sitting on the ground which seemed like a pleasant idea. Every time I saw her this weekend, I had made a point to tell
Photo: Mission
Apple Booty explaining a boo-boo to me
her I had rooted for her. So I strolled over and said, "I want you to know I was rooting for you mate.
Honestly." She actually laughed at this, even though this must have been the seventh time I'd done it.
I rather laboriously lowered myself to the ground, feeling that shoulder and wrist all the way.
Apple Booty is a real estate appraiser who lives in Baltimore. She said her job was really very busy, so I asked her about the real estate market in this economy. She explained that the Virginia/DC/Maryland market was always hopping. She also works on Pirates Magazine in whatever capacity they need her. I tried to pin her down on a title, but she really didn't seem to have one.
Photo: Caribbean Pearl
The British soldiers preparing their cannon to fire
The battle finally started with the firing of one of
Photo: Mission
The gun captains
the pirate cannons. The British went through the procedure of
loading their cannons and then stood at ready for the command to fire. Gareth appeared to be in charge of the left
two cannons and the Viceroy appeared to be in charge of the right two. I had noticed yesterday that they were a bit
slow to respond to the pirate cannons being fired and now I knew why. There was a lot of pomp and circumstance. As
I said, it was a very different experience than the pirate side.
Photo: Mission
The rest of the battle kind of went this way... First there was cannon fire back and forth, with the pirates having
small arms to back them up. When the black powder was gone, a group of pirates, led by Michael Bagley, made a sneak
flank attack and tried to capture one of the British cannons. (The idea of sneaking seemed kind of funny to me given
that the battleground is an open field. There could not be any real sneaking here. Although, to be quite honest I
didn't see them until they ran up to the cannons, so what do I know?)
A skirmish followed between the British and the
Photo: Mission
Youngblood charging, the Viceroy going down and the dead
ragtag team of pirates, resulting in several people being killed. I think all the pirates were killed, but
don't quote me on that. The rest of the two groups (the main body of pirates and the British) approached
each other and a melee resulted.
By the end of it, everyone had been killed except Youngblood and several photographers
Photo: Caribbean Pearl
Youngblood...victorious?
who apparently didn't get the
message that they were supposed to be dead if they were on the field. Youngblood ran around the field like a berserker screaming about
finding someone to kill. He then threw off his red coat (he had been on a Brit cannon team) and announced he
was turning pirate. I think. I couldn't hear that well and I was playing with my camera zoom trying to get
some decent photos for the Journal.
It was a very good battle, the best of the weekend and the crowd around me and Apple Booty applauded when it was over. Several photographers were capturing this battle, so I thought I'd stick some more photos here at the end, even though they're out of place as far as the narrative goes.
 Photo: Caribbean PearlmadPete & Barnacle Beau attack! |
 Photo: Mission Folks watching from the fort wall. |
 Photo: Mission The British rushing towards the pirate line |
Nearly everyone had been killed, so there were several dramatic shots of the dead. Somehow it seems fitting to close with these.
 Photo: Caribbean PearlA field of dead soldiers and pirates |
 Photo: Caribbean PearlWinner of the most dramatic death pose |
 Photo: Caribbean PearlMichael's sprawling demise |