Mission

Ah, the ballast. I have never heard of such a punishment, but here's some stuff about the ballast. The first is from Stephen Bown's book Scurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner, and a Gentleman Solved the Greatest Medieval Mystery of the Age of Sail. The second two are from W.R. Thrower's book Life at Sea in the Age of Sail (which I admit is not very well documented, but which is extraordinarily tempting to use because it's so graphic)... “The ships always leaked, and pumps could never keep the water out entirely, so the ballast of gravel or sand became incredibly putrid. Ventilation was poor and the bilge gases so noxious that is was extremely hazardous for carpenters to go below to work in the hold. The stench was unbearable and occasionally men suffocated from inhaling the fumes.” (Bown, p. 15) "The normal place for voiding in a ship was called the heads; this was in the bows where ‘seats of convenience’, consisting of spaced planks, were provided. The seats on one side were used by the officers and those on the other side by the crew. But it was only possible to use them in fine weather; when the weather was bad – well, you can judge. The effect of this was that the bilges of those sailing ships always contained plenty of human excrement, which was just one more thing that made them, and the whole ship too, foul and smelly. The foul bilge water was to some extent soaked up by any ballast, such as gravel, that the ship was carrying, thus spoiling all attempts to sweeten the hold.” (Thrower, Sea, p. 82) “In an attempt to concentrate and localize the sea water which was always getting in, most ships had a place called a ‘well.’ This as its name suggests, was a sump in the lowest part of the hold kept clear of ballast or cargo and where the pumps were connected. The wells had dangers of their own due to the accumulation of noxious gases (methane and sulphuretted hydrogen) which sometimes asphyxiated men working in them to clear pump inlets or on some similar job. In naval vessels there was a standing warning about going down a well without first lowering a lighted lanthorns. Another cause of persistent dampness was the constant washing down especially in naval ships, where there was more over-crowding and dirt than in merchantmen.” (Thrower, Sea, p. 36)

You're not just teasing us again, are you?

Oddly, it is in the Thieves Market. I don't believe it was moved there, I believe it was always there. However, I would think it would make a whole lot more sense if it WAS moved - in this case to the Charts, Art & Wanted Posters forum. But that's just MHO. Post yer colors, mates! Now, the most interesting part of all this is that I found it using Google search! Thanks to the new forum design, if you know the exact phrase you're looking for, you can type it into Google with quotes around it and Google will find it here - which is much faster and easier than this site's own search function. The problem with this phrase is that it could have been in any forum and it contained very common words for the site: 'post', 'yer' and 'colors'. The site search engine is really sucky when you're searching for more than one word. Plus it confines your search to individual forums. Fortunately, Google rocks for doing this sort of search if the word combinations are unique enough. Google search: "Post yer colors" Pretty nifty, eh?

Funny, I was thinking of Snelgrave's account when you asked this. My impression of that conversation is that it was more for show than than it was an expression of hard-core political leanings. If I am remembering it rightly, they seemed to be using this as an excuse for misbehavior towards someone who would disagree. No matter who was in power, the pirates would have naturally to be opposed to their rule unless the monarchy was inclined to make them "lawful" privateers. And if they're true pirates taking English ships, they're never going to square with the monarchy. So I tend to side with Daniel on this one based on what I've read thus far.

Haha, yeah, I was wondering if anyone would catch that. These costumes were entirely my girlfriend's idea, and it all started out of her desire to create a pirate hat with a bird's nest in it. You can see the sandpiper sticking up over the top of her hat here, actually. And she has this fascination with crabs (yeah, I know, I know), so she really wanted to put one on a leash and take it around the ren faire with us. Oh the brilliant bits we played with that thing, hehe. Your girlfriend and I would probably get along famously. X (The Dread Surgeon Mission)

Gee...now I wanna' crab on a leash for my outfit. Imagine the fun I could have with that...

Ed, Daniel...you're some of our best historical researchers. You must find a non-web reference for this if it's true. The fate of the forum depends upon it.

From The Travels and Controversies of Friar Domingo Navarrete, Volume I, Edited by J.S. Cummings: “There is another little Creature in Mexico, which they call Zorrilo [skunk], of a hellish Nature, for when it breaks wind, it infects all the Grounds about with the Stench.” (Navarrete, p. 41)

I thought this was sort of interesting. It's from the footnotes of the book I am currently entering into my notes, The Travels and Controversies of Friar Domingo Navarrete, Volume I, Edited by J.S. Cummings. “[Footnote 2] Blasphemy was forbidden on board Spanish ships (REC, Ley 33, tit. XXIV, Libro IX) and a sailor found guilty twice was liable to have his tongue pierced with a burning iron (W. L. Schurz, The Manila Galleon (New York, 1939), 272); obstinate offenders were liable to marooning (A. Gschaedler, ‘Religious aspect of the Spanish Voyages in the Pacific during the 15th and early part of the 17th centuries, The Americas, IV (1948), 302-15). There was, no doubt, a feeling that blasphemy endangered the lives of all on board by provoking God’s wrath. Gambling was theoretically forbidden, but in fact there was betting on all sorts of things from the next day’s weather to cockfighting. Gemelli-Careri lost a pair of gold and emerald cuff-links to such a bet (Schurz, 271).” (Navarrete, p. 21) Edit: REC stands for Recopilación de leyes de los reynos de las Indias.

Oh, please, please, PLEASE see if you can find the source for this! It would help explain some of Stynky's behavior. (Stynky is the site owner.)

Voodoo is nice (and they allude to it in conjunction with the noxious character of Tia Dalma), but it's nebulous. As they themselves explain, "here, there be monsters." (Tangible ones.)

I don't have the book handy any longer, but in Johathan Dickison's Journal or God's Protecting Providence he talks about an Irishman who was living in St. Augustine when it was Spanish occupied (1697). If you're interested in curious little details about the Spanish settlements, I commend that book to you. Your account has some really neat turns of phrase, though. "...and a threatning to fire into her if he did not immediately repair on board." "...a threatning..." I also love the use of the word 'repair'; you don't see it used that way very much today. "On the 6th of June the Spaniard with his Prize standing off E.N.E. from the Capes of Virginia, about 8 Leagues, made a Sail, which proved to be the Ship Godolphin of Topsham, bound for Rappahannock River in Virginia." Check out those cool names! I've always thought the word "Godolphin" was neat. If I were to write a fictional pirate book (which I doubt I ever will), I would go way out of my way to include the name Godolphin. "...had not this piratical crew been frighten'd with the appearance of a Sail in the Offing, he had not escaped so well..." Cool. The spelling and weird Latin-based use of letters drives me crazy, but I really enjoy the way they state things in period docs.

I haven't read that book. Did it have a supernatural element? You know they have to have that - it's part of the format for the series. Studios don't like to tinker too much with a successful formula.

Or possible Decem-ber (Decem being latin for ten). Yeah, one of the documents I read from 1697-98 dated things like that. December was represented as the 10th month. What are 'Brawles'? "Ten Anchors of French Brandy, three West India Barrels of Bottled Beer" How much is an anchor? What the heck does "Barrels of Bottled Beer" mean? (Just curious.)

In fact, it is one of the first things I say on my webpage: http://www.markck.com (You know, I've hardly changed the description pane on that page since I first started building the site in 1998...jeez, has it been that long? Now the site is a monster like V'ger...)

Ah, English. I like the neat words, but I hate the silly rules. So I usually don't follow them; I am a conscientious-word-rule-objector. I typically write as I speak, with the exception of rarely-used words. And the primary reason I don't use those in conversation is that they confuse people. (Say, I just started a sentence with 'And'! And I'll do it again. And do it again. And again. (Yes, I threw my copy of Strunk and White away! ))

Who is this? Why kind of glue are you using? I just love feeding the pigeons... Uh...Captain Searle...sir? You...uh, got a thing sticking through your helmet. Sir. Nice shot of Callenish Shay's teeth. Shay told me this very long story about her black teeth while she was getting dressed one day. It had something to do with swallowing one of them. It is a story that you will not read in the journal, mostly because I forgot it. Doesn't this look like it needs a flashy movie title across it? Samuri and Son or One Wolf and Cub of Titanic 2 Red Jessi, Action Girl!...with little white hat thingy... We meet...on the field of onion! (Anyone know the name of the guy in brown?) Is that an African or European swallow? I don't care what kind of swallow it is, it's going down! Peaches. You know, I can't come up with a comment that's as good as the photo.

Probably because of the scenes they're in. (Say, where is the ACLU on this one?) I'll bet that has to do with the mermaids. Sound like no skeletal mermaids after all...

They should have undead skeletal mermaids! That would be so cool. (I once designed a skeletal mermaid prop. I only have very rough sketches of her, though. She never made it into production.) They really need to get back to basics with skeletal monsters here.

I didn't mean to imply there was anything wrong with your questions. (Other than the fact that I can't answer them at this point. ) I was just curious why you keep asking about so many obscure people one at a time. I just had the vague feeling we were doing the research for some project you were working on. Of course, once it's here, it's pretty much feed in the public trough anyhow. Oh, and Ed, the godfathers of piracy are the pirates Morgan and Bartholomew, who set down the Code. I heard that somewhere. :P :P

I have to admit...that is one WB cartoon I have never liked. It's too dark in tone for me.

Somehow I doubt they would go to all that trouble to get Penelope Cruz and then play her against type. Maybe you're just seeing her in the silly roles (like Bandidas or Sahara). Clear your mind of predispositions and watch her in Volver. (Although POTC is probably going to be a lot more like Sahara than Volver, so maybe that won't help much after all.)

It's nice that he got back to you so quickly.

What's so bad about Penelope Cruz? I liked her in Volver. Oh, and my fingers are crossed for you, Matt.