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Santa Maria Pirate Weekend, May 2010 - Columbus, OH
Chapter 5th. Of how the surgeon received two new things, what he did with them, the Sunday crowds, the Sunday battle and the latest pirate fad courtesy of the Santa Maria. Also more than a little fluff used to fill spaces between the photos, a (mercifully) brief song and a game at the end of this page. (No peeking.)
(Photo: Thatchers)
I decided to leave the hotel a bit earlier than Saturday so that I wasn't in such a
rush to get everything together when I arrived. I checked out
and wheeled Phydeaux back to my truck, weaving among the streets of
downtown Columbus. Several people made favorable comments about my Patrick
Hand original hat (in a dramatic Thatcher 'between the ropes' shot
at left), something to which I have almost become inured. I also
noticed a petite blonde woman in shorts walking on the other side of the street,
peering tentatively into each parking garage. She finally disappeared into
one. I figured she must have forgotten where she parked, but a few streets
later, there she was again, peering into yet another parking garage! I saw her
later at the ship with a man and several children. Did she leave
them in a garage and forget where it was? Did she at least crack the
windows? It was all very mysterious. (I hope you weren't expecting
closure on that story.)
Reaching my truck, I bundled Phydeaux into the passenger seat and toddled off to the ship to set up shop. Michael and Kate Bagley each gave me a wonderful gift. Michael gave me a barber's bowl (below left) on Saturday morning, but I forgot to talk about it on that page. (And I'm not going to go back and change the page now. So there.) Kate gave me a new white shirt, which I had actually bid $92 for during the Pirates in Paradise auction. I should note, for those of you who actually follow these scribblings with more than the barest interest, that Michael and Kate convinced me that red was not a period proper color (as far as they know) for a shirt. It would be correct for a waistcoat, but not a shirt. Michael told me he would be willing to make me a red waistcoat if I would get a PC white shirt instead of a red one. So I relented. I changed into it immediately, despite the possibility that someone might see my underwear in the process. It fit wonderfully and actually liked the color. (Michael is making a me a long-sleeved waistcoat in red, which, if he puts fuzzy white piping and trim on it, will probably make me look like Santa Claus.)
(Photo: Rosabella)
(Photo: Bagleys)
Left: The brand new barber's bowl, painted in the style
of an actual period bowl.
(Or so I'm told.)
Right: Mission re-installing his head scarf after putting on his new shiny, happy white shirt.
(Photo: Joshua)
One thing I have learned about presentations is that if you keep reciting
the same material, you get bored and the thing loses its juice. I try to
keep a set of ideas in my head and then wait to see
which ones I end up using. Fortunately, Michael's gift of a new barbering
bowl gave me an opportunity to wander off in a different
direction. The ship's surgeon was indeed in charge of barbering. Landside,
the surgeons were moving away from barbering at this time, since they felt
it was beneath the guild. (It was in part because of these feelings that the
barber-surgeon's guild split along the hyphen in 1745...not long after the
Golden Age of Piracy ended.) Shipboard, however, the surgeon was the most
qualified to handle the razor, so cutting hair and barbering fell to him.
Period razors were actually not like the horn-handled safety razor
you see in the middle of the table. They were more like the triangular
bar you can see in the red felt-lined box. There was no
'safety' on this style of blade (the section that is not sharp near the
handle) so shaving was best left to those familiar with sharp, slippery
blades.
(Photo: Trish)
The tours started again promptly at 11 (left) and I was
soon busy extolling the job of the surgeon.
The battle preparations started around 1pm. I volunteered to go
out in one of the boats since several people had left and I
thought they might need me. Michael asked me if I wanted to go out
in one of the two boats. I clamored into the Green Black Sheep,
enlisted as a rower. George appeared on the dock and started giving us a
Saddy Smurf look, so I gave up my rowing seat to him. The Sheep
and the Rotting Scow pulled away from the dock for the bridge
(below left) while I headed back for the Santa
Maria to take photos. There, I found the defenders, weapons at the
ready, crouched down and tensely awaiting the 'surprise' attack by the
two boats.
(Photo: Mission)
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(Photo: Mission)
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Eventually, the surprise was sprung, much to the relief of the impatient defenders and the two boats came out from under the bridge with their guns a-blazing. This was the signal the Rieske Cannoneers .were waiting for, although they probably startled some poor cyclist who was out for her Sunday exercise in the process (below left.) Shipboard, .folks with guns, like Chris and Lynn Gregg (below right) fired at the pirates while folks like Miles Thatcher watched. As usual, all this gun and cannon firing was for naught because nobody in the attacking boats wanted to die and end up in the mighty (dirty) Scioto River.
(Photo: Mission)
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(Photo: Mission)
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We again had boarders, although I think only one of the boats emptied their cargo of men onto the rope ladders that the Santa Maria had left there for them. That one was the Rotting Scow piloted by none other than Michael Bagley (below far left). The first ones up the ladder(s) were David and Cody, who are teenaged boys and, as I mentioned previously, are eager to do anything that is potentially dangerous and possibly stupid (below center left). They were followed by Joshua (center and center right photos) who wisely waited to see if the teens could do it. All this caution was for naught, because Callenish Gunner and Ryan Thatcher were at the top of the ladder waiting to help them over. After assisting them, they tried to hit them with cudgels (below, far right)
(Photo: Karen Jones Arnold)
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(Photo: Mission)
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(Photo: Karen Jones Arnold)
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 (Photo: Karen) |
(Photo: Mission)
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Like the previous day, the boarding went badly for the pirates.
(After the battle, your surgeon heard someone whine "I had to be on
the losing pirates side both days!") As they boarded, the mighty Zach
took them down with his sword. (Below right.) He
then prepared for the next boarder, poised to pounce (below
center.) (I find it sort of amusing that the mighty Zach's sword is
nearly as tall as he is.) In celebration of Zach's great deeds, I have
composed a song:
Everybody's boarding ships in coats,
Some paddling the Rotting Scow, others are paddling real boats.
Everybody's in despair, pirates climb the side,
But when Zach the Warrior gets here,
Those pirates gonna run and hide!
Come all pirates, come and get hacked
You'll not see nothing like the Mighty Zach!*
*Sung to The Mighty Quinn by Bob Dylan, but (fortunately) performed by Manford Mann rather than Dylan. (Who told Dylan he could sing anyway?)
(Photo: Mission)
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(Photo: Mission)
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(Photo: Mission)
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(Photo: Poppa Ratsey)
After the battle, one
of the knives was spotted floating in the water. You
may wonder how a knife can float in the water. Wonder
no more. Someone -I think it was Mark Gist- had bought some
fairly realistic foam props to be used during battles on the
ship so that people could engage in close combat and not
hurt each other. The most humorous one was a large foam mug,
although no one seems to have photographed it. (Possibly
because no one wanted to use it.) However, there many shots
of the foam swords because that's what most close combat pirate
fighters want to do - sword fight. (Right
- Boarder Thomas brandishes a foam sword in a fight with defender Chris,
who wields a foam axe. Pretty decent looking for foam, aren't they?)
During one of the Sunday skirmishes, a foam knife went over the side
and Nathan Logsdon decided to retrieve it. (Below.) He
told me he didn't want to take the ladder with wooden rungs because the
wood kept slipping out of the rope. While he did manage to pluck the
floating knife out of the murky water, he was unable to get upright on the ladder. So
Michael came over in the Scow and rescued him.
(Photo: Mission)
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(Photo: Mission)
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(Photo: Mission)
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(Photo: Mission)
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(Photo: Mission)
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(Photo: Mission)
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(Photo: Thatchers)
"Hey...Where do those [rope] stairs go?" |
(Photo: Bagleys)
"They go up!" |
 (Photo: Bagleys) |
I've noticed that at re-enacting events some activity or thing often grabs everyone's imagination and becomes the "event fad". At PiP '07 it was onion bottles and drinking rum, at Blackbeard '07 it was rowing and drinking rum, at PiP '08 it was swapping hats while drinking rum and...well, you get the idea. At this event, it was climbing in the rigging. (What do you mean 'and what?' You were expecting something else?) Combing through the photo albums, nearly all of them had some reference to climbing the rigging. Not one to miss a random silly event fad, I thought I'd highlight this one with a series of related photographs. First, let's have one more pointless example of how badly I can misuse javascript and photos at left. Mouse on over it and see Jay and George dance on the rigging. Then continue below for several photos of folks in the ropes and a rope sword fight. |
Below are some shots of folks hanging around. Hah! (All right, I'm sorry about that last pun.) They include...
(Photo: Bagleys)Ivan Henry (who hates heights)... |
(Photo: Mission)
Chris and Mr. Thomas Alleman... |
(Photo: Rosabella)The Count, Rosabella & Khelben... |
(Photo: Mission)
Mark Gist (servicing a blocked tackle)... |
(Photo: Karen Jones Arnold)
...and Nathan Logsdon, in the Crow's Nest. |
(Photo: Thatchers)
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(Photo: Thatchers)
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(Photo: Rosabella)
Then there was the sword fight on the
rigging. Originally, it was just Michael and Chris squaring off (above
left). But George decided to get involved for some reason.
(Above right) At first he was pretty casual, even posing like he
was doing an
ad for Haggar slacks (right). But then he got involved
in the fight by giving advice to Chris (below center). This apparently
didn't work, so Chris just leaned back so that George could shoot
Michael. Not very sporting, but...pirate.
(Photo: Mission)
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(Photo: Bagleys)
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You probably think I'd be tired of pictures of people in the rigging at this point. You're probably just thinking that because you're tired of pictures of people in the rigging. But I can keep milking an idea until it's bone dry. Or, as a friend once put it, "He's can't just beat the dead horse, he's got to bury it, hold a funeral and pay people to attend." What can I say? I have a few more small photos...they're wafer thin.
(Photo: Rosabella)
George and Chris, celebrating the fact that they |
(Photo: Karen Jones Arnold)
None of the sailors would go first, so Andrea did. |
(Photo: Mission)
"Think twice 007, it's a long way down." (OK, Chris: which movie?) |
After the battle, I started packing up my surgical stuff to make the long trek home. While doing this, the call came for group photos (below). Unfortunately, several people had left by this time, so the crew shots below are missing several folks.
(Photo: Bagleys)
(Photo: Bagleys)
See if you can find 11,392 differences between these two photos
showing the pirate crew of the Santa Maria who was still there on Sunday
afternoon. Le'see if I can name the folks in the top one... Top row: Nathan Logsdon, Sam, Trish & Shannon, Silas Thatcher, Mark
Gist. Second row: David, Milo (holding the bottle of Pirate's Choice in front of
him), Captain Red John, Bloody Marty, Khelben (in cap), Count d'Booty,
Andrew Thatcher, Rosabella (behind Andrew), your surgeon Mission, Thomas
Alleman, Karen Jones Arnold, Joshua Bradshaw and Richard W. Front row: Callenish Gunner, Salty, Howard (kneeling), Irven, Sam, Zach & Ryan
Thatcher, Cody, Michael S. Bagley and Jennie Gist. To see a better
version, look at the photo below where Kate replaces Michael in the lower right
hand corner. (Oh! I gave one of the differences away! Only 11,391 to
go...)
Once the photo was finished, I went back to packing my gear. George arrived with another group in the midst of this. I believe his group contained a record 700 people who all tried to squeeze into the little space in front of my table. Surveying the masses, I apologized and said that most of my stuff was now packed. George once again gave me his sincere Saddy Smurf face so I explained the remaining items on my table to his group. This appeared to work because they went away gratified. Well, I presume they were gratified; it's sort of hard to tell when 700 people are squeezed into a space that small. Either way, I skated out of there before another group appeared.