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

Chapter 7th: Saturday, December 7th, Evening. Beginning with the author whining about how
Photo: Mission's Camera
Explaining the Nippers. (My Job Is So Hard.)
many people were at his display; Meeting Mike the Skeleton Pirate and Ashley; Dinner at Crazy Lady's Cafe with Wendy; A chat with the owner, Mike; A bit about Caribbean Pearl's 2013 exploits; A profile of Stephanie Breslow; The Dead Man's Chest Auction to benefit the Friends of Fort Taylor and Selling Becky's old gibbet.

I then went back to the fort and worked my surgeon's table; we had a marathon run of people. I must have talked for 45 minutes straight, going through various procedures over and over as people kept appearing.
Photo: Mission's Camera
The Author with Ashley and Mike
Things started slowing down around 4 and I was able to get out from behind the table for a bit and chat.

Mike (The Skeleton Pirate of Fort Myers Beach) and his girlfriend Ashley appeared and we talked for awhile. Mike told me he was really impressed with Becky and Bucky and asked me about my techniques for creating them. I explained that I used toilet paper and liquid latex and advised him to check out my Becky and Bucky builder pages. Neither of them put on their pirate garb, which was unfortunate, but I was glad to see them.

Photo: Mission
"I Can't Believe I
Took Him Out in
One Punch!"
There is one other Saturday afternoon story I want to relate. A little kid was going through the camp saying something very loudly as he stomped along. It might have been "Arrrr!" or possibly "Pirates!" or maybe even "Onomatopoeia!" It was sort of hard to tell. Whatever it was, he was clearly very excited to be there and even made playful charges at many of the reenactors.

Now,
Photo: Poppa Ratsey
Zach is Down!
you all remember Zach, friend of Rachel, actor in Cat's movie and guy willing to pose for a clyster syringe photo when everyone else had run off. When this kid yelled whatever it was he had been yelling at everyone directly at Zach, Zach yelled something similar back. This lead to a shouting match in the middle of the walkway. Finally the kid went charging towards Zach, who got down on one knee to match the little guy's height. Zach opened his arms, preparing for a big hug and instead got bopped on the chin by the tot. True to actor form, Zach took the punch and went down theatrically. We all thought it was great. His mom, not so much. "Now I have to deal with him when I get back home!" she cried. (She had a point.)

Photo: Captain Jim
William in Camp With His Bowl, He's Ready for Dinner
The festival closed at 5pm and our crew started thinking about dinner. Steve had once again been cooking, but there wasn't anything I could eat on the menu this time. (They had put a can of regular beans with pork into the otherwise vegetarian beans.)

Iron Jon explained that they were just small pieces of pork, but not having knowingly eaten any meat since 1998, I didn't want to risk it. (I'm told pork is one of the worst things to eat if you haven't eaten meat in a long time – it can cause severe stomach cramps because your system no longer has the right kind of digestive enzymes to process it.)

Photo: Mission - Crazy Lady's Cafe
I started looking for other options. I had it in my head to ask Wendy Wellman if she and her group wanted to go to Café Sole, although with such short notice I figured that this probably wouldn't work. (Besides, I was ready to stick it out in the fort for the rest of the night at this point. The auction was coming up.) I found Wendy in front of Crazy Lady's Café ordering a pastry. She was interested, but Diosa had already eaten and we agreed that Café Sole probably wouldn't have anything that would appeal to her son Dawson (Youngblood).

I asked Mike, the owner of Crazy Lady's what he'd advise for me. He suggested I get a vegetarian taco salad. Which I did, along with an order of fries. It was wonderful.
Photo: Rachel Siegel
Mike with a Giant Burrito
Wendy was seated on the bench at Crazy Lady's, so I perched next to her. Having finished his cooking duties for the moment, Mike came out and sat in the chair opposite.

I asked Mike how long he had been doing the café and I believe he said 7 years. (I would have written this down, but I didn't have pencil or paper. Besides I was eating a taco salad.) He started the business when he got tired of his previous business - refilling toner cartridges. He told me that the problem with the toner cartridge business was that the cartridges were forever changing and you needed to keep buying the new printers needed to test your rebuilt cartridges. He said the whole thing just became a headache.

So he started Crazy Lady's Café and hit the road. I asked him where he lived and he basically said 'on the road'. He had a house in Iowa, but he had only been there a couple of times this year. He loved the mobile life and enjoyed hanging out with reenactors and folks at motorcycle gatherings. Plus he got to winter at events in Florida and Texas which suited him just fine.

Photo: Poppa Ratsey Mike, Man About Town

Photo: Charles D. Brooks Mike in His Spot at Crazy Lady's

Photo: Charles D. Brooks Mike and Wasabi Stylin' at the Dance. (Do not trust these men.)

Photo: Poppa Ratsey - Caribbean Pearl While we were eating, Caribbean Pearl appeared. I asked her about her life over the last year, knowing she had relocated to Saipan with her husband who was (apparently) trying to photograph a certain snake. (I think it was Jeff.) (The snake was Jeff. Her husband's name is Ron.) I probably have some of this wrong because she talks so fast and my memory gradually degrades at this event as I get less and less sleep and try to remember more and more things for the Journal.

Based on the conversation that I can recall, she had liked the Orient somewhat, but was very glad to be able to fly back to Hawaii with her husband, who regularly went there to get training or something. (He got training, she got photos of herself as a mermaid in Hawaii.) She explained that the one condition she had set for following her husband to Saipan was that she had to be able to bring her mermaid tails (she has 2 of them). Based on what it cost to get Becky and Bucky from Michigan to Florida, it seemed to me that it must have been quite an investment to move those fish tails to the orient.

While out in the world,
Photo: Ron Rozar - Caribbean Pearl in Her Two Mermaid Tails she and Ron had decided to visit Australia together because it was the last continent left which they had not visited. There, she noted that they had also almost hit a kangaroo while driving because the thing just stopped and looked at their car "like this." (I have included both the kangaroo and Pearl's imitation of the kangaroo for posterity.)

She also got photos of herself with a wild koala bear, a fact of which she was most proud. However, when she explained this to me, I thought she said 'white' koala, so I spent an hour looking through all her Australia pics trying to find the white Koala. I finally had to ask her about it. She told me it was wild, not white, I replied that I had gotten it mixed up because she sometimes talks so fast. She answered, "I know...sometimes. ;) " So you can see the Pearl with the wild, if not white, koala below. Along with a photo she took of a shaved llama. (There's nothing quite like a shaved llama.)

While driving around, her husband spotted the snake of which he wanted a photo. (Not Jeff. I don't think. I sort of lost the thread of what it was that her husband was trying to get a photo of by this point. Suffice it to say that it was some kind of snake.) "I don't know how he do it, he saw the snake while we were driving and stop the car and get his photos." She did say she was tired of all the traveling because she didn't really have a home these days and was hoping they settled down somewhere soon.

Photo: Caribbean Pearl Kangaroo in the Road

Photo: Mission Pearl as a Kangaroo

Photo: Ron Rozar Pearl with the White Wild Koala

Photo: Caribbean Pearl An Australian Shaved Llama

Stephanie Breslow had walked up with Pearl and I decided to interview her for the Journal. (This is apparently the interview page.) Stephanie told me she had been reenacting for about three years.
Photo: Caribbean Pearl
Stephanie on the Fort Wall
Her interest in the sport was sparked while watching and then conversing with some pirates at the Lehigh Spring Festival in Lehigh Acres. "They were some of the most welcoming people I have met. They invited me to attend the Punta Gorda event (Fisherman's Village Pirate Fest in Punta Gorda, Florida) and I was hooked." I asked her what her favorite part of pirate events was and she said there were many, "but I think the best part for me is watching the kids faces light up when they are around pirates. It is priceless."

Stephanie has been coming to the Fort Taylor Pirate Invasion since she got into pirate events in 2011. She enjoyed the family aspect of it. "Where else can you go and be around a few hundred people and feel like family? Watching the people as they come into the fort and learn its history and being able to say you are part of that is amazing."

Looking at Stephanie's photos, you will notice that she has several tattoos. I asked her about them and she explained that each had a special meaning. "The angel is my guardian angel protecting my heart and soul, the star is in memory of my grandparents and the dream catcher is for the Indian side of my family. I think my favorite is the leopard print on my shoulder. Leopards can not change their spots and neither can a person. They are your true colors." Very neat.

Photo: Poppa Ratsey Stephanie at the Ball

Photo: Poppa Ratsey Stephanie & Pistol at Sunset

Photo: Caribbean Pearl Stephanie in Profile at Sunset

So that was dinner! (With all those profiles and discussions and shaved llama photos, you forgot that Wendy and I were eating dinner, didn't you?) We shared the order of fries because the taco salad was more significant than you might think and I wasn't all that hungry for the fries after finishing it. We put lots of salt on them. You know, they might have had vinegar at Crazy Lady's – it was that kind of place. That would have been good on the fries too. But I'm wandering off topic again...

Well, since I'm headed in that direction, let's talk about Oreo. Actually, I have nothing much to say about Oreo, other than Syd Leach brought him over to our encampment and we enjoyed his company. (Oreo's.) (And Syd's too.)

Photo: Mission Syd & Oreo: Oreo Preening

Photo: Mission Syd & Oreo: Syd Distracted

Photo: Mission Syd & Oreo: Oreo Distracted

---

Evening fell upon the camp and that meant it was time for the tea lights. In fact, the group with the role of town crier was going around the camp with the large town crier hand bell ringing and yelling that it was time to do this for
Photo: Borrowed - A Battery Powered Tea Light those who hadn't been paying attention.

Now, you may be wondering what the heck a tea light is. Well, it's a little battery powered light that is supposed to look like a candle. It has nothing whatsoever to do with tea as far as I can tell. So, as near as I can see, they're badly named.

As to their purpose, they were given out to the camps so that they could be put where tent ropes were staked so that people wouldn't trip over them in the dark. This is a neat idea, because I've tripped over a couple tent ropes in my time, although not so badly that I actually fell. Tent ropes are really more a nuisance than a true hazard IMO. But to hear some of the women in camp talk about them, they were delivered to us on earth by sanctified angels. I think there may actually be an FTPI Tea Light Facebook fan page now. (This seems to say more about how clumsy some of the women in camp must be than anything.) They did make for nice Christmas in photos, though.

Photo: Mission Becky and Bucky in the Romantic Twilight

Photo: Mission The Fort at Eventide. Note How the Tea Lights Add to the 'Christmas'

Photo: Caribbean Pearl - The Dead Man's Chest Auction Audience With evening arrived the time of the Dead Man's Chest Auction. We headed over there early to get a good seat. I wish we had gotten a different good seat, because I was downwind of a table full of smokers. The cab cigar from last night had not been kind to my throat and the smokers at the other table were not helping. (Not that I blamed them for this – they were just having a good time. I just wish I hadn't sat downwind of them.)

In most ways, my seat was about as good as you could want. Our group was just in front of the area where auctioneers Cannibal Chrispy and William would be hawking the wares.
Photo: Mission
The Giant Dead Man's Chest We had a clear view of the actual chest, although only some of the items had actually been placed in the chest.

The operating theory here is that when a man dies, all of his possessions in his seaman's chest are auctioned off at the mast. The money raised is then give to his widow when the ship returns home. Whomever this particular dead man was, he had an awfully big seaman's chest. Since his possessions wouldn't fit in it, he must have been a pretty wealthy fellow.

Photo: madPete
Mission Post-Cuba Libre

I had not been drinking anything because a lack of sleep combined with spending the day in the sun had made a bit logy. Plus I wasn't feeling all that wonderful, which I also decided to blame on the cab cigar. The sun had set, however, so I figured a wee dram might be just the thing to cure what ailed me. So I had a Cuba Libre. This made my throat feel better for some reason. (There's probably a lesson in that, and it's probably a bad one.)

Our table initially consisted of madPete, myself, Diosa, Wendy and Dawson Wellman. This led to a series of photos of the me, Wendy, and madPete which I am including here, mainly because I have so many of them. Plus, whomever took them tried it both with the flash on and off. You can see the results below.

Photo: Mission's Camera Photo With Flash of Mission, Wendy & madPete at the Auction

Photo: Mission's Camera Light-Adjusted Photo Without Flash - Looks Like Impressionism

The auction itself was the typical raucous event with William and Cannibal Chrispy trading off auctioneer duties with markedly different stylings as you see below. The first image shows William trying to auction a book. (Hopefully it was one of the 3 C's of pirate friendly books: comic, coloring or carnal.) Next we have Chrispy auctioning a metal sling with five missile holders. No... wait... Scarlett Jai explained to Chrispy that it was actually a chandelier. (The price would have been higher for the metal missile sling, I'll bet.) The last shot shows William trying to hang himself with his scarf in frustration over the feedback he was getting while auctioning... much to the amusement of the crowd.

Photo: Mission William & A Book

Photo: Mission "You, sir, want a metal sling!"

Photo: Mission Scarlett Jai 'Advising' Chrispy

Photo: Mission William Despairs of the Audience

There was a lot of good stuff there, but the crowd must have needed a bit of Cuba Libre themselves. Several of the items auctioned at the beginning didn't do nearly as well as you might have expected. Among the items I found interesting were two swords made from a swordfish's... sword? Iron Jon thought about purchasing one of them, but the bidding got too high for his taste. Someone had also buried a bottle of fine rum at Fort Jefferson, which is located 60 miles west of Key West. It is a more complete version of Fort Taylor that sits all by itself out there. It can only be reached by boat, so it is rather remote. (Say, that rhymed.) The auction was for a map of Fort Jefferson that showed where the 'treasured' bottle of rum was to be found at the fort.

Photo: Mission The Swordfish Sword. Say it, it's fun. 'Swordfish sword, swordfish sword."

Photo: Mission The Fort Jefferson Treasure Map

Photo: Wendy Wellman
Chrispy Auctioning the Belaying Pin Chrispy finally managed to break the dam of cautious spending by auctioning off a belaying pin with a brass star in the handle made by Captain Jim. It all started off normally enough and then Chrispy noted that it could also be used as a marital aid. In fact, once he had honed in on this particular aspect of the belaying pin, he come up with a wealth of double entendres for it, including.
Photo: Rachel Siegel
Lady Chaos Carol. The sign behind her reads,
"Please to not TEASE the pirates."

"It's made of wood...morning wood!"
"It doesn't use batteries...that's what makes it 'period correct!'"
"Because, sometimes you feel like a nut...sometimes you don't!"
"$69 going once!....$69 going twice!....$69 going all... night...looong!....Sold! for $69!"

(Thanks to Captain Jim for remember all these. Come to think of it, the fact that he remembered all these is also somewhat disturbing.)

I'm sure this is just what Captain Jim had in mind when he lovingly handcrafted the thing for the auction. For the record, the belaying pin was won by Lady Chaos Carol.

Photo: Mission - The Shot Glasses on Mission's Mantle There were many other items auctioned. I wound up buying a set of short glasses with skull and crossbones on them for $20, which seemed like a good thing. You can never have too many things with skulls on them. (Well, I can never have too many things with skulls on them. You can have whatever you like.)

The photo of them also contains two bottles and skull paraphernalia that I put on either side of the pirate skull glasses to add a bit flair to this image. The glasses look sort of flat, but I assure you that they are glasses with skulls on them.

Incidentally, unrelated to the auction, the two bottles with the Pyracy.com logo were made by Stynky Tudor, possibly as an attempt at atonement for not showing up to the event like he told me he would. (More on that later.)

Photo: Mission
William & Jim Auctioning the Gibbet We were getting near the end of the auction when I realized that Becky's old gibbet wasn't hanging around (ha!). You may recall that I had derisively said that William wouldn't be able to get $20 for the thing in its current condition. He promised me he would get much more than that. So I wanted to see what would happen if it were auctioned.

I snuck up to the stage and asked the auction crew if the gibbet was to be auctioned that night. It turns out no one had brought it, but Lily Alexander said that if I ran back and got it from the Mercury camp quick-like, they would stick it in the auction. So I jogged back to camp and detached it from the ridge pole on Iron Jon's tent fly. You may remember that we had been using it to house a lantern. (Upon seeing this during the day, a couple of tourists had actually asked if the gibbet was specifically
Photo: Mission
Georgiabelle Rose & Ferguss Hardwood -
Proud New Owners of Becky's Gibbet designed to hold lanterns and if that was normal during the time of the pirates! Iron Jon replied that it was.)

I got it back in time, so William auctioned it. The bidding started out tamely enough - $10, $20… then Ferguss Hardwood offered $100! William announced that I, being its creator, would sign it for whomever bought it. This was to try and entice more buyers, but I think the jump from $20 to $100 had shell-shocked any other potential buyers. William definitely got a lot more than I though he would.

I talked with Ferguss and Georgiabelle and they said they thought it was steel at first, but they didn't mind that it was plastic because they had wanted to donate about that much to the fort. They asked if we could keep it in the encampment until Sunday, which I agreed to do. (They had to walk back to their hotel. It would probably be kind of hard to explain it to the front desk.) They also wanted me to sign it and said they might even bring it back to auction again next year because it was a piece of FTPI history.

Two spirits were left. (No not that kind - there's no such thing - I mean rum.) The first was a cask containing some very high quality rum - or so Wasabi told us. (He had made the cask and added the rum. Or
Photo: Mission
The Hotly Contested Rum Cask so he also told us.) He took the stage for a bit so he could explain this concept in fullness. He wanted to have the winning crew bring the cask back next year, fill it with similarly high quality rum, and reenter it in the auction. Being as it was almost the last item up for grabs, the bidding was hot and heavy. Finally it came down to the Mercury crew (I believe in the person of Captain Jim) and Fayma Callahan. Fayma finally won it for somewhere around $200. Then she donated the whole thing to the Mercury crew! Captain Jim was summarily put in charge of the cask. He has already drawn up a detailed plan on how the cask is going to be refilled and returned next year.

The last item for bid was a bottle of Pirat rum. Scarlett Jai was running around saying it was not supposed to be in the auction, but that someone had brought it for her! Naturally the bidding went fast and furious. I have no idea how much it fetched, but I believe Scarlett Jai's dad won it. (Don't quote me on that, though.) I also have the distinct impression Scarlett's act was just that - designed to make go for more. I could be wrong, and frequently am, but that's my guess.

Photo: Mission Wasabi Explains the Run Cask

Photo: Mission Scarlett Protesting the Pirat Auction

Photo: Mission Scarlett's Dad - The Pirat Winner (?)

So that was the auction. I wanted to give a shout out to the auctioneers as well as Lily Alexander and Fayma, who were handling the record-keeping. I don't have photos of them doing this, but they were definitely an important part of the auction.

Photo: Mission Auctioneer Cannibal Chrispy

Photo: Caribbean Pearl Auctioneer William Pace

Photo: Caribbean Pearl Scarlett Jai as Vanna White

I hung around for awhile after that, but I wanted to be able to get an earlier start tomorrow than this morning, so I left around midnight. Sunday is always a long day and I wanted to be ready for it. Plus the Mercury Crew was going out on one of the boats tomorrow!

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