TalesOfTheSevenSeas

I don't know if anyone already mentioned this plot foible or not- but I stumbled across this info in the book "The East India Company Trade and Conquest From 1600" and thought it was interesting- In Pirates of the Caribbean, which takes place in the 1700's, Norrington notes the letter "P" branded on Jack Sparrows forearm and comments that Jack had "...a bit of a run-in with the East India Company." But in the 1700's the East India Company was called by other names. From 1600 until 1709 it was "The Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies." Then there was a merger with another company, and in 1709 it became "The United Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies" That remained the legal name until it was changed to the East india Company in 1874. The first mention of the name East India Company appears in a charter act of 1833. It was also known by the nicknames of "The Company", "The Honorable Company" and "John Company". Now hows that for ultra-nit-picky, eh?!! *grin* obviously if Norrington had called it anything other than the East India Company, 99.9% of a modern audience wouldn't have know what he was talking about. Which leads to another question... how much of a modern audience event knows what the East India Company was?

Our event went great last night- it was a very high-end upscale "Treasure Island" themed corporate party. Our pirates were at the front greeting guests, with Neko, (aka "Scoundrel") our handsome rogue, cracking his whip and offering "free floggings no sin required!" We greeted guests with lines such as: " 'ello Love! 'aven't seen you in ages! Not since the tavern in Tortuga! You remember don't you? You were dancin' on the table tops.... You don't remember eh?! Not surprising with all the rum you had that night!" "Welcome aboard wenches!! Welcome to Treasure Island!" "I know this pirate!!! Sailed with Bartholomew Roberts he did! They called him the Terror of the Seven Seas!" and other such lines. Once inside, we mingled and ad-libbed with the guests, remaining in character for about six hours, which does wonders to improve one's pirate accent, lemme tell ye!" We posed for lots of photos and danced with the guests. The crowd response was terrific and everyone had a great time. The entertainment agency would like to use us for other events, so we're looking forward to more of these! I'm afraid my camera is missing at the moment, but the photographer took this one of me. That's Cleo, a blue and gold macaw on my shoulder. She belongs to the photographer who is also a good friend. Cleo was one of two parrots there to pose for photos with the guests.

All right ye' swabbies.... answer me this- Halloween is a Friday. How many o' ye are pirate enough to wear yer pirate garb at work, eh?!!! Me, I wear mine, Saber wears his and I encourage the instructors and students to come as pirates also. We hang up jolly rogers in the hallway outside the class rooms and pirate the class for a day. Hmmmm, maybe I'll even bring Jeff this year!! Then out for the evenings festivities!

Another email from the little pirate aka "Madman Michael" and his mum... "Claire, Thanks for passing on the note...Yes he really loves the pirate treasure.:) He has been looking at it and playing with it non stop since he got it...I laughed and told him I was jealous that he got all this really cool pirate stuff...he just giggled at me. But thank you from both of us...you guys are all really great. Michael wanted to be a pirate for Halloween so this is great cause there was alot of stuff in there we needed for his costume...that I don't have to make or buy now...so that was even better and he was thrilled about that. :) On Halloween I will take a picture of him all dressed up and send it to you all to pass on.:) Thanks again from both Madman Michael and I (Anne Reed Flint)"

Ahoy all ye warm-hearted pirates!!! A toast to ye all!! Ye done good! I just got the following email from the little pirate's mum, all the little smilies were in her email also... "Claire, Michael got his treasure today and he loves it...He is so excited...:) He said to tell everyone thank you for everything and he loves everything...:) Thanks guys...it was so nice of you all to send Michael presents...:)"

Only when I has t' lad! Only when I has to!!

That's cute, but sheesh, I sure hope no one ever uses it as a resource for bird care! We have two parrots, a rose-breasted cockatoo named Spanky that belongs to Saber and I have Cloudy, a triton cockatoo. Click to hear Cloudy say 'Polly want a cracker' Click to hear Cloudy meow like a cat! That be me n' Cloudy in the photo below. Quite the handsome one, eh? (OK I'm done shamelessly showing off my baby now!!!)

Plans are going well for this event despite the minimal notice. I have made the requested number of 4-5 pirates, brought in a photographer with two parrots that are friendly with strangers and may have two swordfighters available to come in on short notice. So it's all falling together nicely. *whew!* But I'd still love to have a few more pirates. If any of you Bay Area buccaneers are looking to do some pirating Saturday night drop me an email at talesofthesevenseas@hotmail.com!

'appy birthday lad!! My yer ship nv're sink!!

Ahoy bay area pirates- I just got word that a local hospital needs pirates for an awards banquet this coming Saturday evening in Hayward. The theme is "Treasure Island" and they'd like us to greet guests at the door, pose for photos with guests, mingle, do ad-lib interaction with the guests and for my parrot to be in attendance. They'd like 4 to 5 pirates if possible. I know this is horribly short notice, but are any pirates out there available? Please let me know ASAP if you'd be able to come by emailing me at talesofthesevenseas@hotmail.com WHERE: 527200 Calaroga Ave Hayward, CA 94545. I'll send directions to participants. WHEN: October 11th, 5:30pm (thats this coming Saturday evening) I need to hear from you ASAP! -Claire

Styny m'dear I am soooooooooooo swamped.... how about if we add a link at the pub to my photo page instead? I know you've asked before but ack....... I be barely keepin' me head above water lad. Can we streamline the process a bit and just provide a link?

Finally got 'em done.... here are my photos, plus a few of Sasha's and Dany's added in. Videos to follow shortly. Poison Quill's Pirate Faire Photos

Nay Bully, not aboard the Royaliste lad. Should such a thing occur if it were done with maliscious intent, no doubt the ship herself would turn on an evil crew in swift order. A strong spirt lives in her timbers and there's little doubt she would have her revenge. Hell hath no fury like an angered ship.

Ah.. good point Royaliste. I didn't intend to make my post sound as if we were about to go crashing the Royaliste against Diablo Point etc. Just that it was a factor to deal with and avoid. Although I think that's what the currents would have enjoyed most certainly and had done to other ships in the past. Great care was given to keeping us all out of danger at all times. There were some tense moments keeping it that way, a few times and situations that changed quickly with the blink of an eye. But all were quickly corrected. For example, once when I was at the helm, with Saber and Royaliste adjusting the sails, they shouted "Boom!" meaning that the boom of the main sail was swinging and that one goes right over the helm. I was already crouched down, but looked up. In those two seconds I looked up, the current caught the ship's keel and pulled her bow right off my intended course. In these waters, she angled off about 15 degrees in a matter of seconds. But a quick shout from Royaliste caught my mistake before it became a problem. Apologies if I got too adventurous with my description- (it's a pirate thang... ye know, like Jack sparrow ropin' them sea turtles!)

OK gotta add me two dubloons to Saber's. First of all, agreed, we are a very green crew. But on the other hand, one thing we have never discussed is that both Saber and I have been directly involved with life & death water rescues and neither of us panicked. We never wanted to talk about sad and unhappy things aboard the Royaliste as we're all there to have fun. A bad scenario would be if you were injured and unable to captain the ship. In that case, we could have at least held a stationary position and radioed for help. Worst case scenario would have been if you had been hit by the boom and knocked overboard. I can tell you this much captain. We know enough to make every attempt to rescue a person overboard, but know enough not to risk the lives of the rest of the crew doing it. Had the worst happened, of course every attempt would be made for a rescue and of course assistance would be radioed for as well. But I can tell you this much, we do know how to stay calm do our best and not panic. God willing, we'll never have this tested again and never aboard Royaliste. In the case of Saber, a small child fell over board. He dove in and got her while the boat circled and picked them up. They got the baby quick enough, but Saber was so exausted from the ordeal, they nearly didn't get back to him in time. In my case, a young lad of 23 on our camping trip fell into a river during a particularly bad snow melt. I found his body in the river. An attempt was made at rescue and his body was recovered but we were too late to save him. So if this is of any reassurance, we're green with tall ships, but we've both looked death in the eye captain and are a little less green in that respect than we appear on the outside. So you can at least rest a little easier on that. :) Don't beat yerself up so bad on this m'dear.

OK I'm gonna sing the praises of the swivel gun for a moment. It's interesting to look at the pre-Civil war accounts of how privateers and pirates were armed. It's not what we see in the movies. Hollywood has taught us that bigger is better. But as Royaliste has said many times, when we've talked on this subject, "... this country was won with swivel guns." The swivel guns are the "little" guns mounted on swiveling mounts all over the decks of a ship. They have many advantages. First of all, they are small, light and you can carry a whole bunch of them on board. You can pick them up and move them to other places on the ship. You can turn them and aim at your target before the ship is perfectly aligned. You can't do any of that with a full size gun (gun is the term for a cannon on a ship) mounted on a carriage. Here is an example. The Black Prince, a Revolutionary War privateer was outfitted with sixteen 4-pounder guns and thirty swivels. All of that was on a ship only sixty-five feet in length by twenty feet in the beam (width). One thing no one has answered yet was the question about technique. Here is a great illustration of "firing on the up-roll" which means firing the guns as the ship rolls her side upward- this delivers the volley high and into the rigging of the ship. The idea was not to sink your prize, (another Hollywood myth) but to disable it and take what's on it. You can't spend gold that's on the bottom of the ocean. But, if ships are engaged in battle where the objective is not to collect the goods, but to kill the bastards on board, then the idea is to get your ship situated to "rake" the other ship, meaning to fire lengthwise down the ship and break her. This was a deadly and leathal blow to any ship. It shattered the ship's structure, and sent and explosion of wooden shrapnal flying everywhere. Here is an illustration of raking a ship: Also a little clarification on the linstock- It is a wooden handle with a wire assembly that holds the slow match as Royaliste pointed out, not the part that burns, but the part you hold. Here are a couple of illustrations of different types of linstocks- And here's a rather piratical looking old salt with his swivel and his linstock, smiling as if his prize is ready to be boarded!!!

Since the Haunted Forest is in Los Gatos... my suggestion is "El Gato Diablo"

Wow.... what an amazing weekend this has been! This was truly one for the history books, as we quite unexpectedly got a real-world dose of what Drake and his crew experienced when they sailed the same waters! Royaliste, Saber, myself and a newly joined member of our pirate guild set out early on Saturday morning and sailed 25 miles north along the coastline to Drake's Bay. Drake's Bay is so named because it is believed to be the spot where Francis Drake and his crew stopped to do the careening (bottom cleaning, scraping tarring etc) of their ships. The trip up took us about 4 hours. We went as most vessels do for safety on the open ocean, a combination of sails and motor power. We anchored out in Drake's Bay Saturday night, Saber grilled dinner on the deck and Royaliste discovered that you can actually make very good tasting pasta dishes using Mocha Mix and water when your Quartermaster forgets to buy milk!!! The bay is silent and secluded. We were part of a Master Mariner's gathering of wooden ships and there are few modern intrusions there- just a dozen or so classic wooden ships of varying types. In the morning, we enjoyed a hearty breakfast, secured the ship for the trip home and when we went to fire up her engines for the trip home.... we discovered that the starter hand gone out!! Welcome to 1755. Here we are, 25 miles from home and about to do something that has probably not been done in about the last 100 years- sail a square rigger through this difficult stretch of open completely under full sail without the aid of any motor assistance. This isn't an easy sail. There are crossing currents going in all directions. There was little wind and what there was came in brief gusts. So there was little sailing we could do by the wind and we had to ride the currents. A daunting task with no motor to say the least. Add to that equation that Royaliste is sailing his ship with a very green crew. So all took a deep breath and headed out for open sea. Just getting out of Drakes Bay seemed to take ages. It was sheltered from the wind, so we had to drift the currents... and not let them pull us in to the treacherous rocks on the northern opening! Once out of the mouth of the bay, we had to head out to sea a ways so that we would be able to clear the rocky points at Bolinas Bay and Point Diablo that were coming up ahead. We had little gusts of wind, but nothing much. Our top'sl (square upper sail at the top of the mast) was invaluable in catching those little gusts of wind, high up off the water. Many times we were battling some incredible currents. They would push and pull the ship from every which way, constantly changing force and direction. It was a constant balancing act to keep going in the right direction, read the sea ahead of us, get the sails working to our best advantage and keep us pointed towards home… then the fog caught us. I went below to make sandwiches and came up to see that we were no longer in sight of land, but encircled in fog. When that happens, you lose your sense of direction. North looks like south looks like east looks like west. It is just a big circle of fog all around you and your ship. We used the compass and the GPS (we did have that modern advantage) to locate our position on the nautical charts. That job fell to me, but fortunately my drafting background and some archaeological mapping experience came in handy and I located our position along the coastline with a couple of minutes of familiarizing myself with the map and the GPS. We also radioed the other ships in the vicinity and advised them of our rather precarious situation. We slowly worked our way towards the Golden Gate, several times fighting incredible currents working against us. After one time where the ship was so far over on her side that the muzzles of the cannons were only a few inches from the water, I looked up at Royaliste and said “I think we should title our posts on the Pyracy Pub about this ‘Kissing the lid of Davy Jones Locker!!’ “ and so that’s where the name came from. We had no idea what we would face coming back in the Golden Gate. We hoped to arrive in time to catch a flood tide, but we couldn’t control the timing. The Gate is tough. Lots of quickly changing currents, a treacherous rocky point aptly named “Point Diablo” which translates to “Devil’s Point”, where the current draws the ship right into it. Just as we were getting ready to come in under the gate… a great big barge was coming the opposite way. So we had to out-guess his moves, avoid point Diablo, not hit the concrete and iron bridge support, battle the currents all at once as we came in under the Golden Gate!! It was touch and go a few times with some pretty tense moments. But we made it through and to the bay to our great relief! Once in the bay, we knew we’d done something that had not been done in probably a hundred years or so. Made the trip in a square-rigged ship under full sail. …and with such a green crew, maybe never. It was quite a day. Friends in a small boat met us, and helped us ease the Royaliste into her slip. We’re all pretty worn out, but it was one heck of a weekend!

Gads... I am so booked already, all through October, but this sounds like fun- If nothing else, I can forward the info to our pirates. Can you please email it to me at talesofthesevenseas@hotmail.com Additionally, I can usually get a pretty good size crew of pirates together for an event, but not on short notice. Next time an event comes up in Northern CA in need of pirates, with a bit of advance notice, I can spread the word to quite a few people and be more helpful. Some of our events are scheduled months and as much as a year in advance.

The ship is in CA m'dear!!! We're just heading out for a weekend sail to Drakes Bay this afternoon, so you might wish to email Royaliste so that he'll see your note.

The little pirate's treasures were sent off today, via priority mail. I'll let you know when I hear back! Thanks again to all of you for the well-wishes and the treasure contributions!! -Poison Quill

www.talesofthesevenseas.com ...and my other, which features archaeological news updated daily. www.archaeologica.org

Here are Sasha's Ojai photos. Again, it is an Angelfire site, so if you get an error message, try back in a couple of hours. They only allow a few viewings of a page per hour. Click here for Sasha's photos Still working on mine....

..

So Royaliste, ye bore witness to Jeff an' the wench takin' a trip to the 'bone yard' eh?!!! Photos comin' right up....