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Fort Taylor Pyrate Invasion Nov/Dec 2012 - Key West, FL
Chapter 15th: Monday morning and afternoon - More proof that giving Stynky your cell phone number is a really bad idea; Searching for breakfast; Of my Haunted House friend Kim who has almost nothing to do with pirates or this event; Going over to the fort to help people pack; 
Here - take it, it's all yours!
Chatting with Zak's mom Jen; Recounting some Fort Taylor Pirate stories from the past and Taking the Mercury crew over to the condos to not help deliver the surgeon's shipping crate to the UPS store.
3:30 am - Crawl into bed and go visit my subconscious. I sleep remarkably well until...
7:00 am - My cell phone rings. @#$%$#! Who is calling me at 7am after seeing me leave the fort around 2:30am? If you guessed Stynky, you win a virtual Kewpie doll. (I've been trying to get rid of that damned virtual Kewpie doll for months anyhow.) I didn't actually answer it because the morning after a good long session with scotch, I am usually quite logy.
Do I really want to deal with Stynky in this state...?
What passes for a hangover for your ship's surgeon is living in a dull and featureless world where I look at the day and think that it ain't for me and I may as well give the whole thing a miss. Fortunately, I don't usually get headaches or feel sick at my stomach or worship the porcelain god, I just feel slow and dull-witted. I am just... logy.
Photo: Mission
A View of the Condo
Do I really want to deal with Stynky in this state...?
I padded around the cool tile floor of my condo in my bare feet. The porch doors were open with the pull screens closed. (BTW, I love those pull screens. They sing to the engineer in me.) There was a nice pleasant breeze wafting through the place, but I was mostly oblivious to it. I wondered at the roll of cotton in my mouth... Oh, wait that's my tongue. Those stupid cigars... (I later learned that Brig spent quite a bit of time on Monday trying to get the taste of them out of her mouth.) Jack buys good cigars and I do recall them tasting pretty good while smoking them, but this morning... pthah.
Do I really want to deal with Stynky in this state...?
It occurred to me that there is no going back to sleep after this sluggish mental debate, so I went ahead and called Stynky back.
Photo: Don Dunbar
Stynky Being Sassy
He answers.
I whine... "Whaaaat?" My croaking voice sounded like it was coming from a sarcophagus.
Stynky: "Do you want to go to breakfast?"
"It's 7am - there's nothing open. You're in Key West. Normal tourists are dead to the world at this point. Why the &^%$ are you calling me at 7am? I went to bed at 3:30."
I'd add exclamation points to that last sentence because it would make it all sound more dramatic, but you couldn't have gotten emphasis out of me with needle-nose pliers at that point. There's a bowling ball sitting between my ears and I was having trouble trying to keep my thoughts lucid enough to just keep up with the conversation, let alone trying to add spicy verbal cues.
We talked for a bit and I finally decide that whatever we wind up doing, it will be fodder for the Journal. (See what I do for you people?) So I consented to try and find a place for breakfast. I know Croissants de France opens at 7:30, so I suggest we meet and go there.
Photo: Pirated
Croissants de France
I threw on whatever clothes were close at hand and stumbled out of the condo, feeling like I was made of settling concrete. I met Stynky on the road. He told me he fell asleep on the beach after I left earlier ...much, much earlier... that morning. He awoke feeling... I don't know what he was feeling. I was too busy dealing with my own stupor to listen to him describe his.
I do recall him telling me he decided to get up with sun - as if he had a choice - which turned out to be fortunate because one of the park people appeared not long after he crawled out of his sand tomb. (My fond hope at this point was that he had sand in his shorts. Waking me up at 7am after Sunday night. Pah.)
Arriving at Croissants de France I could tell he was not impressed. It was now 7:38 according to the big cheerful guy behind the counter, but they didn't serve food until 8am. I shoot Stynky a look.
"I told you that we wouldn't be able to find breakfast this early."
Key West is not really a morning town. Not even remotely. It wakes up sluggishly, just like I did. It moves a bit arthritically and has a dull headache.
Photo: Some Unknown Tourist
Back on the street he explained that that wasn't the breakfast he was looking for. He wanted a Key West breakfast. I knew what he meant, but I also knew we were not going to find it right then. Finally I admit that Blue Heaven opens at 8am. I am pretty sure that this is where he really wanted to go all along and he knew if he found me I could lead us there.
I love Blue Heaven, I honestly do. The open air, the bright white cross-hatched lattice fence, the packed mulch and patio block floors, the little Tiki bar at the opposite end, the roosters scrambling amongst the cats, the wrought iron tables and the efficient wait staff that you can just tell have interesting life stories if you can only prise them out when they're stopping to refill your coffee. Yep, love it. But I was not hungry. Hungry and I didn't belong in the same sentence. So I told him.
"I'm not hungry."
"Neither am I, but let's go over to Blue Heaven - they'll be open by the time we get there.
They are not, but the gate is open - a hopeful sign.
I had been there on Friday morning and
Photo: Mission
The Blue Heaven Hostesses.
(Alberto
was not there when I took this.)
had been chatting with the guy who was folding napkins near the hostess station, Alberto. He had been quite interested in my garb and had asked me several questions and told me several things he knew about pirates. (Many of the things he told me were wrong, but you know how it is.) I had given him my card and suggested he check out my website.
Alberto was there again this morning and he greeted us cheerfully with "It's the pirate doctors!"
I let the error in Stynky's identification pass.
Stynky asked "Can we sit down and wait?"
Alberto glanced furtively behind him and said, "No. I could get fired for seating you right now."
Stynky said, "Yeah, but can we sit down and wait?"
Alberto talked with us for several minutes, asking more questions about pirates, which helped stretch out our waiting time. At the end of the conversation it was still 10 minutes to opening time. (What a couple of Blue Heaven groupies we were.) Alberto indicated we couldn't stay there or he might get in trouble, so we ambled off to the open gate at the entrance and stood there and chatted. The fog was lifting. I didn't feel human yet, but the bowling ball was gone.
Blue Heaven opened and we finally got seated and had a nice, Stynky-approved Key West style breakfast. We both got eggs Benedict. After that and several cups of coffee, my lethargy was completely gone and I was feeling zippy. Good old coffee! You're a better friend than Stynky. (Although I have to give him his props - the environment at Blue Heaven proved to be most conducive to recovery.)
 Photo: Mission The Tables at Blue Heaven |
 Photo: Mission A Hen and Her Chicks Await Scraps |
 Photo: Mission Blue Heaven all Christmassey Looking |
Upon completing our meal, Stynky called Braze, who was giving him a ride. Stynky suggested Braze meet him over by the entrance to the Truman Annex. (This is where my condo is - in the Truman Annex.) While walking over there, I spotted a broken fish tank in a pile of trash. It reminded me of a Haunted House room that my friend Kim had worked. It was filled with fish tanks containing colored water and plastic baby dolls, so I told Stynky about this. He liked that. (You can see a photo of this below, although the original was obscured by fog from a fog machine we had in the basement. I have done my best to clean it up, but it is still a bit grainy. Then again, that's appropriate to haunted houses!)
Curiously, that very day I found that Sergio - the wunderkind photographer from the Michigan Pirate Festival in Grand Haven that I profiled in August - had met my friend Kim at a party. I hadn't seem Kim in 15 years and yet the day I bring her up in conversation, my pirate friend Sergio posts a slew of photos of her on Facebook. Isn't life interesting?
 Photo: Mission Kim (on the right) at Haunted House As I Remember Her in 1997 |
 Photo: Sergio Mazzotta Kim Today - All Grown Up! |
Photo: Mission
Stynky and I walked to the Truman Entrance Gate and stood around there chatting for about ten minutes. We talked about the Pyracy Pub and what we could do to improve it. He explained how Google ads said they weren't going to pay for running their ads because he had malware on the site. He asked them where the malware was so he could remove it. They told him that they couldn't tell him because that was proprietary information. And so on.
All that coffee went straight through me so I told him "I have to go back to my condo and use the rest room or I'm going to explode."
He replied, "OK. Give me your camera."
"Why?"
"So I can get a picture of you exploding. I'll make sure it gets in your Journal." Komedy!
Photo: Mission
Examining the Twin Bear on Sunday Night
After stopping at the condo, I made my way to the fort. The first people I encountered were Jack, Brig and Keira who were packing up their van. (Well, Keira was playing around in a yellow construction helmet in the shade while Jack and Brig packed up their van.) They wanted to get an early start and left soon after I arrived. I found a note tied into the lining of the Patrick Hand Original Planter's Hat, however. It read, "In case I don't get to say it in person, farewell for now, third twin! Thank you for the bear and gate duty fun! Love, Middle Twin."
Middle twin? I thought she would be the youngest twin, so I asked her about this later. She explained that I had explained that she had explained that I was the youngest twin in last year's Journal. (It's pretty bad when you don't remember what you wrote. I said the bowling ball was gone, but the hole still apparently remained. Besides, breakfast with Stynky will put anyone off their game.)
 Photo: Mission Jack & Brig Pack, Keira Plays |
 Photo: Mission The Message Tied in the Hat (It's Brown Paper) |
 Photo: Mission The Message Itself |
I wandered around, chatting, wishing people farewell, getting hugged entirely too much and occasionally helping folks to load up. I didn't have anywhere to be that day, so I didn't mind helping people to load their stuff for a bit, but not too much because, you know, these hands are delicate, precision instruments. Surgeon.
Photo: Mission
Jen and Zak Swimming with the Manatees
While I was preserving my delicate, precision instruments from the rigors of moving heavy things into vehicles, Zak and his mom Jen appeared. Zak wandered off and Jen sat near me while I taped up the box surrounding my surgeon's chest to prepare it for shipment.
I had seen comments from Zak on Facebook about swimming with the manatees, so I asked her about that. She told me it was amazing. "The swim beneath you and you feel them lifting you up."
I asked her what she was working on these days because she is a creative, intelligent woman and she explained that she was putting together a web page that she called 'Healthy Moms, Healthy Bodies' that was about eating and being healthy when you were pregnant. She told me she was going to be interviewing Dr. Christiane Northrup about midwifery and nutrition soon.
Photo: Mission
Jen in the Patrick Hand Original™
We eventually went about as far as we could with that topic. Your ship's surgeon actually skips anything
that mentions pregnancy, delivering or caring for children in the period surgical manuals. (It could be contagious. I don't want to run any risks by even reading about it.) Jen mentioned that she also had a financial information web page which she had put together that talked about how to save money and invest it rather than relying on chintzy bank account savings and the soundness of the dollar. Now we were talking! With an MBA and interest in business, I could get into that topic without fear of any potential topic backlash. I told her about the wonderful parable-style book The Richest Man in Babylon which seemed to interest her greatly. (I know, I know, we're supposed to be talking about pirates stealing money, not investing it, so I'll stop now. Although that is a really good book.)
Jen also told me she, Bill (her husband) and Zak had gone out on the Owl on Friday. It was the smallest ship on the water and the real reason
Photo: Mission
The Owl - In Case You Forgot About It
the battle went the way it did on Sunday as I have already explained.
Friday had been an overcast and windy day, and Jen told me the Owl kept getting pulled out to sea This was a problem because they weren't very close to the battle a lot of the time. The Captain - John Lewis - kept having to bring her back in. Even so, it also meant that they got away from the land where they were able to see a manta ray leap out of the water. She told me that Zak had wanted to sail on the Owl because it was closer in size to the kind of ships most of the pirates would have sailed in during the golden age or piracy as I had recently explained in the first of a two-part article on the surgeon's quarters shipboard.
Eventually I finished boxing up the surgeon's chest and Jen left me to go find Zak.
William Red Wake told a couple of stories this weekend that I wanted to share in this Journal. This seems like as good a place as any to do so.
Photo: William Red Wake
The 2005 Fort Taylor Pyrate Encampment
The first was about the founding of the event. William was the instigator who got us inside the fort back in 2005. He kept suggesting on the Pyracy Pub forum that the event be moved inside the fort. (People used to stay in hotels and the pirate “events” were held in various bars and restaurants around town.)
Various folks on the Pub told him the fort would never let us use the fort for such a thing. William kept thinking about it and finally decided to call the fort to see what would happen. I couldn't hurt to ask, right?
He reached Harry Smid who immediately said, "I've been wanting to do that for years! How many people have you got? How much space do you need? We'll supply you with wood and water and free camping. It'll be great!" Three and half hours later, William finally got Harry off the phone and the event had a new location. So William really laid the groundwork for what would eventually become FTPI.
His second story was about my first Fort Taylor pirate experience in 2007.
Photo: William Red Wake
Mission at Fort Taylor Looking Thoughtful in 2007
(It was also the very first Pirate Surgeon's Journal which was started because William's wife Tracy couldn't come, so she posted something on the Pyracy Pub asking those of us who were there to tell her what was going on. But I digress...)
William saw me sitting on a picnic table, staring thoughtfully into the distance while everyone else was putting up tents and organizing their campsites. (He thinks I was being thoughtful. I was probably wondering where I should go to dinner that night. The way to this surgeon's heart is through his stomach.)(Fortunately I have an instrument for that.) (Getting through the stomach, that is.)(OK, I'll stop doing this now.)
Knowing this was my first time at the event and sensing something was going in in the fuzzy lint I call a brain he asked me, "So? What do you think of all this?" He says that I looked at him, paused and responded, "Ask me again when the weekend is over."
Fast forward to the Monday after the
Photo: Jim McGavic
Mission and William Chatting on Sunday Night
2007 event. He claims he saw me sitting on the same table, or one near it, looking off in the distance in about the same way and he asked me, "So... what did you think?" He says I replied that I would probably doing this for many years to come. And... what do you know? I
have been.
The last thing is something from Sunday night's romp at the gate. We were all sitting around talking about the goat and I was explaining how my off-the-cuff idea about bringing a live goat to FTPI to rile Lily had helped lead to there being a goat for dinner that evening.
I was marvelling drunkenly at the whole goat thing and, according to William I said, "You know, it's strange. It (pointing at my skull) comes up with all this weird sh!t and I put it out there and it becomes legend... and lore." Yeah, it's a bit arrogant, but I can allow it because I was pretty happy sitting there thinking the whole thing over.
Photo: Mission
Establishment of the Fellowship of the Flounder Club
Back in real time, people were finishing their packing and leaving. Keith offered to take me to the UPS store, with a stop off at the condos to pick up my return shipping labels. For reasons about which I'm still not entirely clear, all the remaining Mercury crew members (William Red Wake and madPete) piled into Keith's car with their gear to go with us.
On the way, madPete and I were inducted into the secret Fellowship of the Flounder club which Keith and William had founded earlier. The purpose of this club was to immediately slap anyone who complained about niggling little things in the face with a flounder. It had a secret handshake which, if I explained it to
Photo: Mission
Rusty Nell and the Shipping Crate
you, I'd have to kill you. Since that's hard to do over the internet, I will just not explain it. Fair enough?
At the condos, I settled in with the rest of my inexplicably present crew at Keith and Lily's place. Keith trotted out some hors d'œuvres which we munched while discussing the weekend. Keith made fresh coffee so I decided to have some of that too.
This is not abnormal; Keith always has fresh coffee. This is not because he dumps out the old stuff when it's been sitting, but because a pot of coffee has a very short life around him. He practically inhales the stuff. He told me that Crazy Lady's Catering had stopped giving him paper cups and taped his name to a ceramic mug and told him to just come in and get his own coffee whenever he wanted it. He paid in $10 increments and told the owner, "Let me know when it's time to put down another deposit."
Keith and I finally left my two crew members in his condo and took the surgeon’s crate to the UPS store. I was free of it at last!