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Fort Taylor Pyrate Invasion, Dec 2013 - Key West, FL

Chapter 2nd:
Photo: Caribbean Pearl
Thursday Camp Setup - Going Not According to Keith's Plan, As We'll See Shortly Thursday, December 5th, Afternoon and Evening. Setting up the Mercury camp in the fort; Of Crazy Lady's Cafe; First timers Rachel and Zach do an oddly impressive trick; Of Rachel; How the surgeon thought he was like James Bond, but he really wasn't; Dining with madPete at the Rum Barrel to settle an old, long-forgotten debt (seriously, I have no idea what it was) and Sitting around the campfire, which was just dumb.

Eventually I toddled over to the site and started helping with the unloading process. Iron Jon, Captain Jim, William and Jon's friend Steve were unloading Jon's trailer. Most of the stuff consisted of canvas, coolers and similar things I didn't know where to put. Steve was placing campfire wood onto a rickety looking barrow. It was simple enough to put that in the right place, so I helped him.

Photo: William Pace Mission Doing Actual Work

Photo: Mission Steve Unloading Wood

Photo: Mission The Large Stockpile of Mercury Camp Wood

Once the unloading was finished, we had to start putting up tents. Well, first we had to have a beer, which Captain Jim generously supplied. Then we sat around and talked for a while. Then we started putting up tents.

Photo: The Imagineers at ILM
What Keith Was Worried About: A T-Rex With His Head in a Non-Color Coded Map Tent Now the camp had been precisely laid out and Keith had a nice color-coded map to prove it. Unfortunately the first few people to arrive hadn't been told about the nice color-coded map and were directed by someone who didn't understand the layout to set up in a way that made anyone else attempting to follow the nice color-coded map impossible. (This is just the sort of thing Ian Malcolm was talking about in Jurassic Park. Except that misplaced tents didn't result in people getting eaten by dinosaurs. Well… not so far, anyhow.)

Rather than make half a dozen people move their tents, Keith wisely decided to deviate from the nice color-coded map. This meant we had to use both cunning and ingenuity to set up our camp. Between the five of us, we managed to gather almost enough cunning and ingenuity to do that. (I have photos of this, but I thought you'd enjoy the T-Rex more. I know I sure do.) Then it was time for another beer.

Photo: Mission
Zach and Rachel's Wonderous Water Fountain Trick While we were resting, I noticed a guy and gal doing some sort of stunt that involved spitting water at each other. When I first saw it, I thought it was just your typical 'Boy meets Girl. Boy likes Girl. Boy spits water at Girl so She does it back and They fall in soggy love and live happily ever after.' But, no, this was an actual trick they were doing. On purpose. So I grabbed my camera and jogged over to catch this. This was my introduction to Rachel and Zach - a splendid pair, truly.

They were actually finishing up their act because they had to go and do something else, but they gamely agreed to give one more performance for me and my camera as you see here. They said something about it being a circus act, which your gullible
Photo: Mission
Zach & Rachel Celebrate Another
Successful Trick ship's surgeon took to be true. When I later asked Rachel where they did this (thinking it was a Ren Faire trick or such), she replied that they did it "anywhere we think we can gross people out/impress them the most."

In fact, Rachel later explained how it came about: "I looked at Zach and said, 'Do you think if I spat water out of my mouth you could catch it in yours?' Turns out he's way better at the pressure stream, so he became the fountain and, well, the rest is history, as they say."

Rachel and Zach were part of Cat Iacona's movie crew. I guess I should try and explain that. Cat was making a student movie for her final project for State University of New York. At least I think that's what she was doing. I tried to find out more, but I imagine she was wrapped up in post-production when I contacted her because she never got back with me. She had a crew of six in Key West. I'm not entirely clear on whether it was a group project or not. I do know that Rachel Kadison and Zach Porterfield were the actors in this film. Those were the two I was watching do water tricks. (Which was appropriate. I'm told that this is the way John Barrymore got started.)

Photo: Poppa Ratsey - Cat's Movie Crew (from left): Cat Iacona, Photographer Marie, Cameraman Jovon, Rachel, Zach and Heather

Photo: Poppa Ratsey
Rachel Kadison I had hoped to profile both Rachel and Zach, but Rachel was the only one to get back to me. She is an aspiring actress and this was her first pirate event. When I asked her how long she had been doing pirate reenactments she replied, "About a month." When I asked her what her first event was, she answered "A really awesome event…you might know it, the Fort Taylor Pirate Invasion 2013. This was almost too much of a good one to start with..." As you can see, Rachel is a natural for the Surgeon's Journal.

Rachel is quite creative - she writes, draws, paints, does collages, plays guitar and dances. It's easy to see why acting would appeal to her. In fact, most of Rachel's responses were much wittier than anything I'd have made up, so I'm just going to quote them wholesale.

When asked about what she enjoyed about the event, she said it was "the spirit of it all, being able to take on a persona from a different time, wear clothes that suit you almost better than your every day clothes, and also being able to yell in children’s faces that you’re going to cook them for dinner while their parents laugh. You get away with a lot as a pirate." Now, I have tried really hard to gross children out, but I've never tried yelling in their faces about cooking them. I can see where a person'd derive a whole lot of pleasure and satisfaction out of it.

"Also, it is entirely empowering to be a part of something larger than yourself, and the pirate family is one to never be taken for granted. It’s such a great culture, and one that I want to further delve into, for sure!"

Photo: Poppa Ratsaey Callahan Rachel and Zach

Photo: Poppa Ratsaey Callahan Rachel Showing Us Her Pirate Garb

Photo: Poppa Ratsaey Callahan Rachel as the Boss

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Photo: Mission - Crazy Lady's Cafe It was about 3pm at this point and now my sugar had slid the other way and was sliding low. (Ride the rollercoaster! It's fun!) (Not.) So I had a really delicious (not to mention reasonably-priced) veggie burrito at Crazy Lady's Cafe. They even had Diet Mountain Dew, the official drink of Mercury Pirate Surgeon Reenactors at Fort Taylor. So I was very happy.

While I was sitting there, eating my giant veggie burrito, Captain Jim came over with a tool. 'Is this a surgeon's tool?' I looked at it, It was very thin and sort of bent like a bistoury knife, but it had a plastic handle that said 'Secure Pro' on it. 'It kind of looks like one, but I don't think it is.' I replied.

William looked at it and laughed. 'It's a lock-pick!' Talk about serendipity! One can't help but wonder why someone had brought a lock-pick into camp, but it was JUST what I needed to get that stupid key out of the door of my condo!

Photo: Mission
Tools To Remove a Key End - Pliers & Lockpick Feeling refereshed, I went back and helped set up more tents. I won't bore you with all the details of that. Just note that we kept working until it was time to pick madPete up at the airport.

Keith gave William his SUV to pick up mP, so I hitched a ride. I had several things to do before the event really got started - I wanted to rent a bicycle for the duration of the event, try to get the key out of the door and shower. (I really, really wanted to shower.) William also had to pick up some poles for madPete's tent, so I figured I had plenty of time to do those things while he was out.

The lock-pick tool made short work of the key. I felt just like James Bond, deftly snicking the key out of the lock. (OK, ‘deftly' is a bit of an overstatement, but once I figured out how to use it, I was able to flick it out just like James Bond would after he had been properly trained off screen.)

It was dusk when William called me to explain that he had madPete and the tent poles. He asked what I wanted to do. I told him that they lock the park gates for a half an hour after sunset, so they may as well come back to the condo and wait. Which they did.

Photo: Some Tourist
The Rum Barrel (When I don't have an actual photo, you get the skeleton.) madPete had only had a yogurt for lunch and I was getting hungry. The crew's dinner plans hadn't been settled, so William called Captain Jim to find out what was happening. What was happening is that Blazing Swine BBQ had made a pig and was giving it out for free in the fort because they were so happy to be invited back to the event this year. I noted my vegetarian concerns, so Captain Jim asked the Blazing Swine folks if they had anything for vegetarians. I could actually hear the laughter from William's phone.

As a result, madPete and I went to the Rum Barrel for dinner. He owed me a dinner there for reasons I honestly don't recall, but he had mentioned owing me such for the last two years, so I guess it must have been true.

Photo: Mission
William Places a Lantern in the
Plastic Gibbet Friends, it is with a heavy heart
Photo: Mission
The Lantern in the Gibbet at
Night (The Only Decent Friday
Night Shot I Had. Sorry.) that I make the following statement: corn and crab chowder is no longer a regular menu item at the Rum Barrel. Yes, I feel your pain, but it is what it is. (Whatever that means.)

Our waitress was named Savannah, which I know because she quizzed us later on in the meal. 'I told you what it was when I seated you, do you remember?' I think I guessed Chelsea which did not please her. But she was very, very nice to us and gave us the locals discount because she just figured we must be locals by the look of us. (I always consider that high praise.)

We went back to camp after dinner. Since Steve had brought upwards of 3 cords of wood, there was a fire going in the Mercury camp despite the fact that it was 78 degrees out. Everyone was sitting around the fire. After five or ten minutes of that, I decided to take a stroll around camp. Thursday night is usually quiet early on, so upon returning to the Mercury camp, I said my goodbyes and walked back to the condo for another shower. (Honestly, who sits around a fire in 78 degree heat?)

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