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Santa Maria Pirate Weekend, May 2012 - Columbus, OH

Chapter 3rd: The pirates actually do some work and get the ship ready for the public; Of the many and various displays that were created and manned including (but not limited to): the registration table; sewing; pirate myths; pirate weapons;
Photo: 'Borrowed'
Convincing tourists to board (Mutiny on the Bunny)
preparing various things for the battle such as the boarding ladder, the small boats and rolling charges; the Forsaken Crew's gibbet and stocks and last, but certainly least, the surgeon's table. Also containing some details about the mermaid's daughter and Sos Boss which is not a cry for help. I don't think.

With breakfast finished, people began stowing their (non-period) gear and empty bottles - there were equal amounts of both as I recall - and readied the ship for action. (For you reenactors, I don't mean battle action, although we readied for that, too, I mean tourist action.) It looked to be a beautiful day and we wanted to make sure there was plenty for the tourists to see and do so that we could attract a large number of them and select the choicest ones for impressment. We needed more people to man the sweeps so that we could finally take that darned police building sitting smugly on the other side of the park. (Ha ha. That's a joke. At least as far as you're concerned, it is.)

Photo: Mission
The morning meeting, as led by Michael Bagley and Mark Gist &c.
Before the official setting-up could occur, however, we had to have a meeting. This was the meeting which the previous evening's meeting had been about. It was mostly concerned with planning the battle and who would be on which ship and what they would do and so forth. Since I usually am the gunner for the Green Black Sheep, I spent most of my time photographing the meeting. However, you'll notice that I only used one of these photos here, which makes me wonder whether my time might not have been better spent listening to the meeting.

Photo: DB Couper Listeners, from left: (standing) Bryan Brubaker, (seated) Michelle, Blue Jessica, Carl Coco, (standing) Chris, Andrew, Jim Shipley, Dan R., Dan L, & Dennis

Photo: Mission "I heard professional pirates didn't have to wear suits, but they seem to have to go to meetings."

Photo: Sos Boss
Carla, Dave and Becci: Sos Boss!
Once everyone knew the plan, the pirates scurried everywhere to get their stations set up. Bryan Brubaker, who had done such a bang-up job with the pirate certificates last fall was given full command of the entire registration process this time. In his new role, he had convinced three people to help him with this job: the crew of the Sos Boss. At least I assume they are a crew. Actually, I have no idea what they are, exactly.

The three of them share a Facebook page, which is counter to anything I've ever seen. It's far more common to find one person who maintains two or three different Facebook IDs in a fashion that would make Dr. Freud ask them to sit on a nice comfy couch while he jotted a few observations - purely for academic purposes, of course. However Carla, Dave and Becci had cheerfully joined together to create a single user ID in a reckless manner that would no doubt have caused Freud to gnaw his pencil eraser anxiously. They were all very friendly folks who had come to pirate reenacting through renaissance festivals. My understanding is that they originally got into reenacting through Steampunk, which (for you non-reenactors) is a hybrid type of reenacting that unites Victorian fashions with non-working steam era technology. Usually this happens the opposite way - people go from pirate to Steampunk. So they were a very interesting, counter-cultural group. They even brought their own monkey, a monkey very much unlike Lob, but that subject is so complex it will take half a chapter to explain. (Wait for it...)

So Sos Boss (all three of them)
Photo: Sos Boss
Dave, Bryan and Jim Brown admiring Bryan's handiwork were on-hand to assist Bryan with the registration table. Bryan had created several period-looking documents for people to see, most of which were either framed or laminated. In fact there was so much
Photo: Sos Boss
Becci and Carla manning the registration table
new material available to the registration table that they wound up having to get an extra table and attach some of the maps to the chains behind the tables to accommodate it all! It was wonderful and Bryan's hard work really showed. Like last year, the heart of this were the articles and Letters of Marque. The kids could sign the articles (like the girl below right) and then get a Letter of Marque to use during the own personal 'privateering' missions. (Piracy is 'legal' when you have a Letter of Marque because that makes you a privateer. Ahem.)

Photo: Mission Bryan, Carla and Anna Maria arranging

Photo: Sos Boss Some of Bryan's pirate documents and laminated maps

Photo: Sos Boss Signing the articles

Photo: Mission
Michelle/Diosa setting you her games
Photo: Mission
Diosa/MichelleThe games also made a return appearance this spring. Last fall, Bryan had spent a lot of his time working the games table, but with his added registration duties, a new gamesman was required. Or, rather, gameswoman.

Our own Diosa de Cancion, aka Michelle Murillo, stepped up to the plate, with a selection of her own games in hand. Diosa recently moved from Florida to New York to take a job in radio and this meant she was really not all that much closer to the Santa Maria. But she decided to come and help out anyhow. She ran the games table, which was set up by the water pump this year, for most of Saturday morning that I saw. As you will notice, the games table was quite popular with the young guests.

Ever the writer, Diosa also gave her impressions of this event on her blog, which has since disappeared.

Photo: Mission Michelle cheating playing a customer

Photo: Mission Diosa ponders her next move carefully...

Photo: Mission "Daddy needs a new brace of pistols!"

Photo: DB Couper
The surgeon and his tools, most stern. (Both he and his tools.)
Then there was the surgeon's table. I was set up in my usual spot near the front of the steerage with a few new items to show. Ask me what they were - go ahead, ask me! I don't remember. I have so much stuff that I can't keep track of it any more. I think the bullet forceps were new because I got them for Christmas. If they were new, so was the leech box. I'd point them out to you but there is so much stuff on that table that you couldn't see them anyhow.

The most colorful new thing I did was add my Andy Warhol version of the stolen Pyracy Pub's skull in a porthole image to the back of my business card. The design looks like this:

It actually seemed to confuse people -they didn't realize that the front and back of the card were different and appeared to believe there were two different business cards. So some took them 'both.' Ah, well. Going with the Warhol theme, several of the people taking photos snapped "artistic surgeon's implement" photos. The results were kind of neat, so I thought I'd throw a few of them in here.

Photo: Mission Looking down on the medicine chest and skull

Photo: Michael Colosimo The pocket kit and bleeding implements angled

Photo: Dolphin Dani Across the table, angled

Period Cupping Source: Wolf
Helmhardt von Hohberg (1695)
Now I don't want to hog this chapter with a lot of photos of my stuff, but it is my Journal, so I'm going to go ahead and do it anyhow.

Dani managed to snap a few candid shots of your surgeon explaining cupping to what may well have been an interested audience. I don't recall this particular audience specifically, so I can't be certain they were interested, but I know no one walked out in the middle of a cupping explanation, so they at least stayed for the whole thing. We can thus conclude were either interested or they were polite.

Cupping, for those who aren't aware, is the process of putting a match into a closed-en glass while upside down to burn off the oxygen. The glass is then placed on the body part that is to be cupped and, as it cools, forms a vacuum which pulls against the skin. The fascinating (by which I mean 'gross') part of this for the time of the pirates is that they did something called 'wet cupping' where they would first make incisions in the skin and then place the cupping glass over them so that the vacuum process withdrew blood.

Photo: Dolphin Dani Mission explains the cupping glass to a (hopefully) interested audience

Photo: Michael Colosimo Showing how the glass is placed

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While there wasn't a "formal" sewing display, there was certainly no lack of living history sewing going on shipboard. I mentioned how necessary sewing is for reenactors and their hand-made clothing when I was talking about Andrea Logsdon on the previous page. (What I didn't mention what it was she was sewing - a pair of underwear for Michael Bagley. Michael's wife Kate asked her to do this for reasons I don't even want to know about. Come to think of it, I shouldn't have mentioned it here, either.)

Silas Thatcher spent quite a bit of time by your surgeon's table, sitting on the bench near the capstan where he sewed a new canvas sailor's bag together. He didn't give a formal presentation, but would cheerfully answer any question asked.

Photo: DB Couper Silas Thatcher explaining his sewing technique to Stephen Priddy

Photo: Mission Silas Thatcher working on sewing the sailor's bag

One new station this year for the Santa Maria was Pirate Myths and Legends. DB Couper and his wife, Buxom Anna Maria, manned this station all weekend long. They had made up a series of images in a sort of flip chart that they used to explain some of the things that pirates did and didn't actually do. The chart featured all sorts of color cartoon images which were used to explain piracy during it's golden age.

The key to it wasn't the images, however, it was the way Don asked the kids about peg legs and earrings. After the kids affirmed that they thought walking the plank was something the pirates really did, Don would reply in a sing-song voice, "Naw, pirates were lay-zee, they just threw 'em overboard!" This worked quite well - he held several groups attention long after your surgeon would lost them.

Photo: DB Couper Don preparing to explode another pirate myth for his audience.

Photo: Mission DB explaining walking the plank

Photo: Mission
Dennis watching MD assemble Perhaps the oddest new station this year (and I mean that in several ways) was the gibbet and stocks that the Beach Boys (Clint and Billie) brought to the party. Now your surgeon certainly has no right to be calling anyone out for bringing a gibbet to the Santa Maria. Before they made their way home to Key West, both of my creations Bucky and Becky Skeleton spent their respective test marketing weekends hanging around the ship. (Heh.)

M.A. d'Dogge and Billie had added a new wrinkle, however. They were giving gibbet rides. Yes, their gibbet (which was wonderfully constructed, especially when compared to the plastic wrecks I used.) It had been tested by M.A. d'Dogge himself! He told me that it had been built for
Photo: Mission
Don and the Gibbet the Chicago Military History Festival that his crew - the Forsaken - had attended in February. This meant he was out in the freezing cold weather of winter Michigan screwing the thing together. He had only intended for it be used the one time, but it was so popular there that he thought it would be work bringing it to Columbus.

First he and his brother Billie had to get the thing together. No doubt when the founding fathers of Columbus built this great city, one of the things they had in mind was the scene above left where Clint Beach aka M.A d'Dogge, would be erecting a gibbet along the banks of the Scioto River. Being detail-oriented, Billie and Clint had brought a variety of hardware to festoon the surrounding area including armor, weapons and, of course, a small cannon. They also had a slightly wobbly set of stocks that was built period correct so that you could actually lock the victim in with a set of pegs. (Something M.A d'Dogge came to regret later in the day as we'll see.)

Of course, no set of stocks is worth its salt until you stick a test subject into it - so they put Michelle/Diosa in. (Another thing Clint would later regret later in the day as we'll see.) Once the ship opened, people actually embraced the opportunity to ride the gibbet. You know the creator of this device was thinking to himself when he finished the first one: "You know, while my gibbet is a useful and effective device for chastising and even torturing malefactors, it could also be fun for the kiddies. I'll have to remember that if it fails to be a good torture contraption!"

Photo: Mission Brother Billie wheeling the cannon by the gibbet

Photo: Mission Of course there's always a test subject

Photo: Mission A satisfied customer

Photo: DB Couper
Mark Gist explaining a facet of the Santa Maria
In addition to our special pirate displays, the normal Santa Maria tour displays were also going on. Mark and Jennie Gist have been involved with the Santa Maria since it was first opened in 1992 and both were on hand to discuss some of the facts about Christopher Columbus and his crew. Jennie was often at the food and cooking display on the Santa Maria where she explained how food was stored and prepared and what sorts of food would be on the ship. Buxom Anna Maria was also on hand to help out and (more importantly) prepare lunch for we hungry pirates.

I saw Mark Gist in several places around the ship, making sure everything was going well and being available to answer any questions that people might have about either the Santa Maria or pirate life. A couple different people showed up at my surgeon's station and asked me about various things they saw in the steerage (the covered back section of the main deck, and I usually tried to find Mark and point them in his direction to get the correct answer. (As opposed to the completely fabricated answer I would have to give them.)

Photo: Mission Mark Gist lighting the portable stove

Photo: Mission Anna Maria and Jennie explain cooking

Photo: Mission Anna Maria preparing food for lunch

Photo: Mission
Our hero, George aka. Ken
Photo: Dolphin Dani
Sarah, covert flutist
The regular Santa Maria crew were helping the pirates out where they could or had placed themselves around the ship so that they could answer questions. They usually give people guided tours of the ship, but with so many pirates around to pitch in, they could occupy particular sections of the ship to answer questions about it. George, the rock amidst the changing seas of Santa Maria employees, was on hand all weekend. Sarah had also returned from last season and had brought her flute to play. She played for awhile in steerage - the surgeon's display has ever had musical accompaniment before and it was a nice touch. I should really look into having musicians follow me around to every event. That can't be expensive, can it? Just so long as they don't play so loud that I have to yell. I hate to lose my voice, you know.

A new crew member this year was Chelsea, whom you find in the following series of pictures. The first thing you notice about Chelsea is her hair. It is a bright, very bright, shade of red. I asked her why she chose that color and she told me that it was because her mother was a mermaid. (It's funny, but I never tied mermaids to bright red hair before. At least not that shade of red.)

Photo: Mission
Chelsea chatting with Dan while the capstan looks on Now those of you out there who are not reenactors immediately recognized this comment as a bit of sly humor on Chelsea's part. Those of you who are pirate reenactors probably thought the same thing I did: Where does her mother do her mermaid gig? Yes, I seriously thought her mother played a mermaid. See, I know several girls who are mermaids, although most of them are only old enough to be Chelsea's sister, not her mother. Below center left you'll find one: Nicole R. Py. Readers with a good memory may recall that she was the girl I was rooting for at Pirates in Paradise a few months ago during the Ms. Key West Contest before Spike El Pirata entered the contest. Lesson: never claim to be the daughter of a mermaid unless you can back that up.

As it turned out, Chelsea is a cosmetologist, which means she has gone up in a Russian space capsule. Ha ha! Just a bit of malapropal space humor there! (If malapropal is a word. I suggest you look it up because I've already lost interest.) Actually cosmetologists are trained to do hair and nails and since the surgeon functioned as the barber on a ship, we have that in common. Although I don't do nails unless they're all green and oozy.

The second thing you notice about Chelsea is that she has something tattooed across the top of her chest. (While you can't see it very clearly in these pictures, it's there.) What I could see of them kind of looked like Christmas lights in garland, but they turned out to be flowers in greenery. (I guess it was that bright red hair that got me thinking Christmas.) I asked her if she had other tattoos and, as Red Jessi did in Key West when I asked her this question, Chelsea immediately began showing them to me. I guess if you're going to be tattooed, you want to take the opportunity to display them when asked. The most interesting ones were the cello marks on her back (seen below right). I thought that was pretty clever.

Photo: Mission Chelsea explaining steering

Photo: Dale Ramp Nicole R. Py, Tattooed Mermaid

Photo: Mission Chelsea, piratess

Photo: Mission One of Chelsea's many tattoos

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This brings us to battle preparations and warfare related displays. We begin with the longest-running display on the Santa Maria Pirate Weekends after my surgeon set-up: the weapons station.

Photo: Sos Boss
The Rieskes manning their mortar
Several people explained artillery and hand weapons to the public. John Reiske brought two of his mortars and a small cannon crew to the event. He placed one of the mortars at the far corner of the dock near the Santa Maria where he usually sets up. He fired this randomly, causing everyone on the ship to jump. (It didn't get to your ship's surgeon this year - I guess I have become inured to the idea of loud cannon fire while working this event.) The other mortar was put up on the stern castle for use by the girls during battle. (More on that in the next chapter.)

Dan Curtis returned to man the gun station this year. I don't know if he was at that station all weekend long, but he was always there when I happened to look over at that area. Dan had set up there during last May's Pirate Weekend so that he could explain to his audience how he planned to capture the Broad Street Bridge with his PVC deck gun. (OK, he didn't actually tell them it was made of PVC, but you get the idea.) He also had his weapons on hand like the guns and boarding ax you see below.

Photo: DB Couper Dan explaining a long gun

Photo: Mission Dan details artillery to guest with Ivan Henry looking on

Photo: Mission Dan aiming the PVC gun at the bridge

Although it wasn't really a public display at this point, the boats also had to be prepared for battle. I don't know exactly what had to be done to them because I didn't help and I really don't know that much about boats. I suppose you have to batten down the mizzenmasts and hoist the scuppers or some such thing. Still, several pictures were taken of preparing the boats, so you get to look at 'em below. There were actually four boats used during the battle this year, which was a record for our event. Below right you can see three of the four: the Black Green Sheep, the Firefly and the Persephone (Purr-seph-own). The Santa Maria's helper boat, the HMS Scow (named by your surgeon in a previous journal), is not shown because it is ugly. (Sorry, but it is.)

Photo: Mission Mark Gist herding boats

Photo: Michael Colosimo Mark Gist fixing the Firefly's rudder

Photo: Mission The Persephone crew setting the sail

Photo: DB Couper
Dan explaining a long gun One of the reasons the boats had to be hoisted and battened was so the Santa Maria could be boarded. Despite what you see in the movies, most pirates would rather not just climb up the side of a ship, spider-monkey style, so it was necessary to provide them with a ladder. (Awful thoughtful of the crew of the Santa Maria, don't you think?)

Photo: Lia Maimone
"You wimps!" I was actually in the park with Michael and Kate when Michael realized that they needed to do this before any battle boarding could take place. My pal and creator of the semi-famous Baby Lion - Grace Thatcher - also happened to be standing there, so she got pressed into service. (How I avoided this is a secret I'll take to my grave.)

First Michael had to find the ladder, which Kate Bagley did by using her phone. (No, they didn't have smart phones during the time of the pirates. Keep quiet.) Then Michael and Grace went up on the quarterdeck and proceeded to carefully slink the rope ladder over the side. I learned that you can't just throw it, because otherwise it gets all twisted. While a twisted ladder can add to the amusement of the watching crowds as would-be boarders tumble into the Scioto River, it doesn't make for a very effective post-boarding fight.

Photo: Mission First you have to stretch the ladder out across the deck to keep it straight

Photo: Mission Then Michael carefully lowers it, letting down one rung at a time

Photo: Mission Until Grace gets excited and it gets twisted up

We finish this chapter with some shots of pirates rolling black powder charges. Black powder for period guns has to be pre-measured and loaded into little rolled paper cartridges so that a) you have the right amount and b) people have something to do before a battle that looks dangerous and important. I have actually rolled charges, back at Pirates in Paradise in 2008 and can state, for the record, that it is exceedingly boring. What a great note on which to end this chapter!

Photo: Mission Dan Curtis, Bryan Brubaker and Shannon Gallatin rolling away

Photo: Mission Dan and Bryan measure powder. They have their guns at ready for testing. (Not.)

Photo: Mission Shannon, Dan Leonard and Danielle preparing shots for the battle

 

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