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Fort Taylor Pyrate Invasion, Dec 2013 - Key West, FL
Chapter 3rd: Friday, December 6, Day. Of adhesive encapsulitis; The morning meeting; Mercury in a bottle (not the element - the ship); The surgeon at his work, such as it is; and A look at Steve, our newest Mercury recruit.
Photo: Mission's Camera
Skylar Grey Tying Mission's Head Scarf at His Request
Being the first official day of the event I wanted to get there early. I took a purely ceremonial shower and headed out so that I could be instantly coated in a protective layer of sweat that would accompany me for the rest of the day.
My first order of business was to get my head scarf tied by a charming lass because it's tradition. Captain Jim accuses me of doing this to get close to "pretty wenches" and says it's a scam, but he is only mostly right. This actually started a few years ago when I had this absurd problem called frozen shoulder or adhesive encapsulitis. (First in one shoulder, then, for variety's sake, the other.) This lasts 1-3 years making it so you can literally not bend your arm around your head. Wanting to have pleasing photos for the Journal, I found lovely girls to do this form. I have often have one of the twins do this. If Mae or Brig had been there, I would have had them do it every time. Since they weren't, I had to find other girls like Skylar tie it for me.
Photo: Caribbean Pearl - The Crowd Around Lily
My second order of business was to give something I had gotten made for William to him – a hand-made replica of the Mercury in a bottle created by Daniel Siemens. Daniel had appeared on the Pub in February this year and the minute I saw his work, I knew I had to get a replica of the ship made for our Quartermaster. It took him several months to create and it was wonderful to behold when I received it. You can read about how he made it by clicking the above link.
Unfortunately, there was a Captain's or Crew Meeting going on when I arrived. (Or maybe both. I can never tell meetings apart. If I could, I'd feel obligated to attend them.) So I had to sit and watch all that before I could give the ship to William.
After the meeting, there was a bunch of forms and stuff to be done. I had originally planned to go out on one of the ships today – the one Stynky Tudor was safety officer on – but Stynky hadn't shown up this year. So I wanted to tell Lily this fact. I tried to do that, but she made me get in line. When I finally got to the head of the line, she said she already knew that and had taken me off the list. Oh-Kay.
 Photo: Caribbean Pearl The Crew at the Meeting |
 Photo: MissionPirates Pay Attention At The Meeting (Weird, huh?) |
 Photo: Mission Scarlett Giving Instructions |
Photo: Captain Jim
William Holding the Mercury Ship-in-a-Bottle
I then proceeded to try and gather the crew, who were similarly trying to get their spots on boats or have their weapons inspected for the battle and so forth. I finally managed to get them all together… well,
Photo: Poppa Ratsey
Mission Showing Off the Mercury Ship-in-a-Bottle
most of them. I gave William the box with the ship in it.
He was delighted, commenting that it was "so weird to see it in three dimensions." After the crew admired it for awhile, he told me he had to take it around camp and show it off. When he returned, he carefully tucked it into a burlap bag so that it wouldn't be in the hot, direct sunlight of Key West. He told us that he wished he had had a fireplace at his house to he could set it on the mantle when he got home.
 Photo: Mission William Opening the Box... |
 Photo: MissionWilliam Examining the Tiny Mercury |
 Photo: Mission madPete Finding His Quarters on Mini-Mercury |
There were some openings on the ships that were participating in the battle this year, so William and madPete decided to go out on one of the boats. This left Captain Jim, Iron Jon and Steve in camp with me.
Photo: Iron Jon
Mercury Ship's Cook Steve
Steve turned out to be Jon's neighbor from across the street. He was retired from the Army after twenty years of service. I told him it was too bad that Gareth Pugh wasn't there because he had retired from the
British Army and they might be able to swap war stories. (Regular readers may recall Gareth from last year. He has several prize-winning sheep and a 16th century Welsh farm which I visited in May.)
I commented to Steve that most long-term military guys had that precise way about them. He agreed, stroking his face and noting, “Yep. This is about as much beard as I can stand to have on my face.” Steve also proved to be a very good cook as we'll see later.
Photo: Mission
Steve Cooking in Camp for the Crew
I asked Steve what his favorite posting was in the Army and he said Italy first and then Anchorage, Alaska. "Although I wouldn't want to be there today. I really loved it when I was younger." I don't know how many children he had, but I did learn that he had a son who was born while he was posted in Alaska and a daughter who was born in Italy.
His daughter could speak Italian, which he noted had been useful in her career. I asked what that was, and he told me that she was currently running a business that designed pop-up ads for the internet. (I had liked her up to that point. Pop-up ads! Boy I hate 'em...) She had four employees and had made a pretty good thing of it. She got her undergrad in biology and a masters in Social work or something like that. I mused that it was funny how far your job often is from your degree as you go through life.
Since I was going to be in camp all day, I set up shop and spent the majority of the day extolling the virtues (and vices) of period surgery. We had pretty decent traffic for Friday, so I got a lot of opportunity to talk about surgery with visitors to the fort.
 Photo: Captain JimMission and William in the Mercury Camp |
 Photo: Mission The Surgeon's Table - New Items Include the Chafing Dish and Cauteries (Upper Left) |
Although I didn't get as much of a chance to see the other displays as I normally like to, there were some decent photos taken of them. So let's look at a few of the campsite photos.
 Photo: William Pace Scarlett Jai Walks By the Signpost |
 Photo: Caribbean PearlThe Iritski Campsite - Cindi& a Lantern |
 Photo: Caribbean Pearl Searle's Buccaneer's Campsite |
 Photo: Poppa Ratsey DB Couper's Wrecker's Campsite |
 Photo: Captain JimSquab Cooking Over The Mercury Fire |
 Photo: Stolen Sylvester's Imagining The Cooked Squab |
There was also a lot of music this year, as you see below.
 Photo: William Pace Greg Hudson Singing & Playing |
 Photo: MissionDutch, Rachel, Beau, Anastasia & Charlie Play |
 Photo: Caribbean Pearl The Brigands, Live in the Sally Port |
Directly across from the Mercury Campsite was Tiffany King's Key West Sea Glass booth. (We'll talk more about her in a later chapter.) Tiffany posted a series of nicely tinted and aged photos of the campsite that I liked. So I'm giving them their own special section in the Journal.
 Photo: Tiffany King Pirates of the Dark Rose Campsite |
 Photo: Tiffany KingTool Table in the Mercury Camp (Yes, Rum is a Tool) |
 Photo: Tiffany King Dr. Sgt. Jeff & Doug |
 Photo: Tiffany King Wobble Spoons and Bottles (So Called Because They are Made by Willie Wobble.) |
 Photo: Tiffany King Captain R. Hood in His Site |