TalesOfTheSevenSeas

Yup, that was Captain Gary of the Royaliste with his finger in the air, actually I think it was both fingers of both hands as such a blatant breech of sailing etiquette was in need of the most stern form of correction! And we're already on it for trying to get the film footage. One of Gary's helmsmen has a friend on the staff of CNN and assured us that he'd jump on it monday! :)

Ahoy mates! The captain's computer is still floatin' belly up, but he is doing his best to be back on-line soon. So I will give you a run-down of our adventures of this last weekend!! We sailed out Friday afternoon aboard the Royaliste from our home port of Sausalito. We sailed out of the Golden Gate and out into the open sea. There, we met up with the Privateer Lynx and the Hawaiian Chieftain. The Chieftain pulled up along the port (left) side of the Lynx and escourted her in. We had come about (made a U-turn) and were on the Lynx's starboard (right) side ahead of her. We gave her a nice broadside in honor of National Talk Like a Pirate Day and to give her a welcome her to the bay area... PIRATE STYLE!!! ARRRRRRRRR!!! The Lynx and the Chieftain, both being equipped with large motors, were able to pull away... well actually eh.. RUN AWAY from us as they seemed 'disinclined to aquiesce to our request' to engage in battle! We gave chase after them as they pulled into San Francisco, taking a swing by the audience that was there to watch the Americas cup. As they were coming out, we caught them in our line of fire again, and gave them another broadside from our starboard cannons! That being done in fine fashion, we came about and saw a line of ships heading straight for us... we'd managed to put ourselves dead center in the on-coming boats in the America's Cup race! We moved as quickly as possible to port and had the right of way, as we were under sail, but an enormous triple decked ship that looked something like the Love Boat on LSD, blocked us from getting out of the way in time! Our captain shouted his displeasure in no uncertain terms at the lumbering hulk and revealed the appropriate finger to her captain! For the next thing we knew... there we were in the middle of the Americas Cup!! It was like being in a swarm of mosquitos!!! We were the pirate ship going the wrong way, right there in front of the audience and the ESPN camera crews in the hellicopter! Snoopy, our helmsman did a fine job of navigating us through the middle of the swarm. We returned to port to let off the crew and to pick up Lucky Penny Hawkings who joined us for an overnight anchor-out off shore. We headed out and anchored in a cove were we barbequed steaks and drank rum until late that night. ARRRRRRRRRRR We woke the next morning and headed out for another fine day of sailing. I spent several hours at the helm and loved every second of it! Lucky Penny did a fine job firing the ship's cannons. ...and then coming through San Francisco, it happened again- I now have legitimate bragging rights as a pirate and can say that I have sailed a pirate ship the wrong direction through the middle of the Americas Cup! ARRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!! Life at it's finest mates, life at it's finest!!!

Redd, I'll tell the lookout in the crows nest to keep an eye out fer that email lad! We have lots of events going on in the bay area in the next few months especially where the Royaliste is concerned. So email me and I'll get ye all the info! BB you have to have the photos loaded up on the internet on a website first, then click the http:// button above your message and fill in the blanks with the URL of the photo (http://www.etc.jpg)

Ahoy Redd! Since ye be a Bay Area pirate, why not join us for a sail or one of our other pirate events we have coming up?!! Drop me an email at talesofthesevenseas@hotmail.com & take a look at the website- we're always happy to welcome new pirates and we sail regularly aboard the Royaliste. www.talesofthesevenseas.com And thanks Scupper, glad you enjoyed the images!!

May ye and yer hellspawn have a wonderful celebration!!

Hey!!! Longmont CO? I have a dear friend who lives there. Not a pirate but a wonderful lady originally from Austria . Awesome that you found a black powder guy to coach you through. Tell me how you like it!!

The Pedersoli Queen Anne does not come with a ramrod, so you have to get one separately. Rosalinda, be sure you have someone coach you who has shot black powder. It is quite a bit different than modern guns. They are far more "tempermental" and "finicky" and the whole mechanism is different. You might look for a black powder enthusiasts club in your area. Bob (Saber) and I didn't shoot ours until we had Gary there coaching us. Even loading them is tricky and they frequently don't fire like they ought to. You're going to need a ramrod, the proper grade of black powder for the Queen Anne cleaning stuff, a brass poker for when it clogs up, and a jag or other tool to get a load out when it gets clogged up. I've had that happen where the touch hole gets clogged, or the flint cracks or falls out and there you are with a muzzle packed with black powder when you need to make a repair! We still don't have all the stuff yet, so we just fire them on the ship because Gary has all the equipment to bail us out! I realized belatedly, thanks to a kind word from Bully, that in the birthday raid thread my exaggerated for humor post about Dany's first time shooting made it sound simple, like playing with a toy and I should have thought of that when I wrote it, rather than being flippant and funny. You'll love the Queen Anne. Wicked little bad gals aren't they?!!! :) I love how well balanced they are. The Harper's Ferry that Gary and Bob have have a lot more weight in the muzzle, but the Queen is very light and managable. They're a wonderful bit of history and I love even all the pain in the butt stuff that you put up with dealing with black powder. And I want to hear allllllllll about it when you fire it!

The wreck off Florida that you are thinking of was the wreck of the 1715 Spanish Plate Fleet. There were 12 ships wrecked in a hurricane in a single night along the Florida coastline. Florida was uninhabited except by native people and the survivors of the wreck were stuck there for weeks. During the wreck, treasure was dumped alllllllll over the place. Lots of silver, gold, mercury, spices etc. So much so, that even today, cobs (crudely fashioned, odd-shaped coins, manufactured by weight rather than shape, aka Spanish reales) will wash up on the beaches after a storm and can be found with metal detectors. I have one that was recovered on Wobasso beach and mounted into a gold setting. The Spanish sent out a salvage operation to recover what they could of the treasure. They used native people as divers to go down to the wrecks and recover what they could. They kept the recovered treasure secured in crudely made huts on the beaches. In 1715, Captain Henry Jennings was working the seas as a pirate hunter for the government of Jamaica aboard the "Bathsheba" (or Barsheba) along with his partner, John Wills, captain of the "Eagle". When he heard about the massive treasure wreck, he and his partner, John Wills captain of the "Eagle" both turned pirate themselves and led by Jennings, they raided the salvors on the beach with a hoarde of 300 pirates, escaping with plenty of looted goods! ...And here's the best part of the story. Jennings was so successful with his raid, that being the bold and brazen pirate that he was, he came back and raided them a second time!!! ARRRRRRRRRRRR!!!! There is an excellent book on this subject called "Gold, Galeons & Archaeology" about the wreck and the team that salvaged the remaining treasure a few years back. It's a well-written easy read.

My nautical collection consists of things to be used in our pirate encampment- lanterns, candle sconces, rum jugs *hic!*, barrels, a jail cage, repro non-functional and functional flintlocks, a compass, tankards, cutlasses, lots of costuming, nautical bottles and of course my two favorites... "Jeff" our decaying skeleton in a barrel clutching a treasure chest and the infamous "Land Shark" our soon-to-be parade float

ARRRRRRRR!!! First they wants me jewelry, now they wants me pirate!! I ain't partin' with neither of 'em! I met Saber on-line at a now defunct role playing site called Ancient Sites. He was the Crown Prince of Egypt in those days!! We wrote together for about 3 years before we met- our characters met, fell in love, had cyberchildren and lost an empire before we met in real life. My real life relationship of 6 years ended and the crown prince stepped forward... the rest is history.

Here ye go... working replicas. I have the Pedersoli Queen Anne, me husband has the Harper's Ferry. Cherry's

So Scupper here's what ye' do.... ye' phones up yer boss and ye' say- "I be a-takin' me vacation time!! ARRRRRR!!!!!" and hang up real quick-like afore he can answerz yez. Then ye email the captain and ye sayz "I'm on me way! Clear a bunk fer me scurvy arse!! ARRRRRRRRRRR!!!" Then ye' git yerself through airport SEAcurity and come blast the hell out o' every ship in sight, swill rum with the wenches and have a grand olde time that ye will remember the rest o' yer life!

And another momentous thing happened... Lucky Penny shot a flintlock for the first time!! ARRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!! A milestone in every pirate gal's life!! She didn't get even a practice shot first before she had to do it in front of the captives- just a little verbal coaching before the raid that I believe went something like this: It's loaded and primed. Don't point it at anyone 'cuz it blows flame and smoke out the muzzle.... Oh yeah, and don't be surprised when the pan flashes and you've got a flame going right next to your hand for a couple of seconds.. It's easy just pull back the hammer and pull the trigger. Lucky did just great. A natural born pirate!

ARRRRRRRRRRRR!!!! Watch yer hands thar Black Pearl!! Unless ye' be wantin' t' go through life with a pair o' hooks fer hands!!! Just imagine what will happen the first time that nature calls lad!!! That should give ye enough incentive to keep yer hands of me... eh... treasures!!!

I got the "reale thing!!" I have a silver Spanish 4 reale coin from the wreck of the 1715 Spanish Plate Fleet. (12 ships wrecked on the florida coast in 1715) It was my 40th birthday gift from me 'andsome 'usband Saber. One of me most-treasured possessions. Mounted in a gold setting. I wear it nearly every day. Wearin' it now as a matter of fact!! Lucky Penny and Royaliste have both seen it, and here be a photo fer the rest o' yez... Me advice is to do yer homework first, pick the wreck you want a coin from, reasearch lots of 'em first, then find a reputable seller with quality mountings.

*staggers in drunkenly stumbling with a flaming cake....* "Happy - *HICCUP!!* - Birthday to ye, Happy - *HICCUP!!* - Birthday to ye, Happy - *HICCUP!!* - Birthday deeARRRRRRRR Jamaiiiiiiiiiiiica, Happy - *HICCUP!!* - Birthday to ye!!!!" *drops cake on floor* *falls over face first into cake*

I thought he was teasing... Quartermaster?!!! ...Or perhaps he's had too much rum... but he's apparently quite serious!!! Regardless, I'm honored from the feathers on me head to the soles of me boots Captain! I'll put me best foot forward and hope I don't tumble right down the companionway!! Yeah... gotta gather up some gooooooooooooood paper work for this weekend!! :)

I put in brand new batteries, checked everything to make sure all was functioning as it should... but the batteries failed the moment we tried to get a photo. Devon's mom took photos, so I'll ask if she could make copies.

CA, OR, WA, AZ, NY, NJ, NM, CO, VA, UT Mexico (only as far as Nogales) and Egypt, to Cairo, Luxor, Aswan, as far down as Abu Simbel. I live in CA and lived briefly for six months in AZ, before I came running home to CA. (Once a California girl, always a California girl!) High points in Arizona were... Drafting on the Roundy Crossing archaeological dig. It was an 800 year old pueblo, with an older pit house beneath it in Pinedale AZ, in the Apache-Sitgrieves Nat'l Forest. I did the first mapping of the site, working with a compass, kneeling in the dirt over a plywood drafting board and grid paper, which I later transfered to AutoCAD. I did manually drafted lab drawings of projectile points, taking measurements with calipers and drawing them by hand, as CAD isn't used on archaeological artifacts. Computers just can't reproduce the human touch in a hand-made artifact like a draftsman's hand can. I did and soil elevations 8 feet below ground, recording the different layers of occupation on the site. I also did some digging and some cleaning of artifacts when we got back to the lab. My 12 year old son decided to dig on an unexplored portion of the site... and discovered a previously undetected wall!! Dig photos Another high point in AZ was doing Helldorado Days in Tombstone dressed as a Saloon girl, participating in the parade and a couple of reenactments, walking the same streets that Doc Holiday and Wyatt Earp did and drinking shots of whiskey in a 100+ year old saloon. (great times those were!!) Also good in AZ was intertubing the Salt River. Then I was ready to come home!! (Not the friendliest place to single moms.) My son and I took a great trip through the Four Corners area, staying at youth hostels and visiting the Native American cliff dwellings. I went twice to Egypt- first when I was single, so I went on an educational tour led by Mohammed Shata, an Egyptologist working under Dr. Zahi Hawass, and then again when I returned after my marriage to Saber, with both our sons. We went on our own and one of our best days was one spent sailing the nile in a felucca (traditional wooden sailboat) in Aswan. In Washington DC, I visited the Library of Congress & the DAR Museum, to see the letters that were written by my revolutionary ancestors and the wedding dress of one of the same ancestors. But without question, some of my best days to date have been aboard the Royaliste in my own proverbial back yard. Vactions on the beach sipping umbrella drinks aren't my thing... I'll take history any day! Give me something old to explore, some dirt and a trowel, or a ship and some water, that's where I'm happiest. Life is too great an adventure to spend getting a tan!

I knew me piratical college degree would come in handy fer sumpthin other than cannon wadding!!! ARRRRRRRRRR!!! Now thar be a fine thought a-flashin' o-cross me brain!! I'll bet we could come up with all kinds o' documentation worthy o' being shot out of a cannon- Like me divorce agreement, the refinance that Dytech bailed out of and the PG&E bill!

Maria, You additional matching pirate button arrived today! Thank-you!!!

An' then afterwards, the Cap'n broke out the Cap'n and poured a round fer his crew!!!

With the newly revised time schedule..... I AM THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!! Now lemme see if I've got all o' them names straight in me haid.. we be a-puttin' holes in the "Privateer SYNX", Rakin' the stern o' the "Hawaiian GRIEFtain", and takin' out the riggin' o the "KUAI BABY" Did I git all o' them names straight an' what we be a-doin' thar Cap'n?!!!

We couldn't post about this raid on a public forum, because we worried that the "victim" might see it ahead of time, as he is an avid fan of piracy. On the afternoon of Sept 14th, 2003, Gary moved The Royaliste into position to allow her pirate crew to raid the a seaside home, known as "The Taj Mahal" for it's elaborate middle east architecture, in Sausalito CA. Saber, Poison Quill and Lucky Penny Hawkings, burst into the Taj firing their flintlocks and chased the lady of the household upstairs!!!! (she was a conspirator in this!) We located our victim, Devon, who was celebrating his 16th birthday in front of the TV, and informed the thoroughly surprised lad that he was about to be kidnapped into piracy! Lucky Penny followed him downstairs and kept careful watch over him to keep him from escaping while he put his shoes on while Saber and I discussed the Taj Mahal's future with her "former" owners- We told them that it would make a wonderful pirate haven once we had brought in a few barrels, built a bar, brought in serving wenches and spread around plenty of sawdust on the floor for when the lads get sick. (the Taj is sparkling white with marble floors *snicker*) We then proceeded to handcuff Devon in a pair of iron wrist shackles, and bind his arms and shoulders with chain and a large heavy 18th century style lock. We then blindfolded him with Lucky Penny's sash and led him from the relative safety of his former home, all the while extolling the virtues (or lack of virtue) of the wonderful life of piracy he would soon enjoy. We told him he'd never have to go to school again and that we thought it was silly to make him take English classes when he spoke perfectly good English already! We said that now he could spend his days raiding ships on the high seas, drinking grog and chasing wenches! Soon we arrived at the Royaliste- But then I announced that I had a much better idea.... WE'D MAKE DEVON WALK THE PLANK!!!! We led the blindfolded lad to a wooden plank and I carefully got him on to it. Then I said, "NOW LOOK DEATH STRAIGHT IN THE EYE LAD!!!!" and ripped the blindfold from his eyes!!! There awaiting him on the pirate ship were all his friends!!!! Everyone shouted "SURPRISE!!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!" and welcomed him aboard the ship. We took them all out onto the bay for a 2 hour sail, Captained by Gary, with Saber at the helm. Devon served as the gunner and fired off a broadside to celebrate his 16th year! We returned the newly initiated pirates to port, but had them sign the Royaliste's articles, officially making them pirates (and making a momento of the day for Devon!) It was a fine day of piracy and certainly a day that Devon, his family and friends will never forget!!!! (and neither will we pirates!!!)

I agree with you ... It does look like it says "Landsmen" and could quite likely say "sent them to Boston" rather than "Sent word to Boston" which is good, as they would not have had to endure the British Prison ships or the prison in Halifax. (Boy this is really exciting!! I just love this stuff!!!) I'll see where prisoners would have been kept in Boston, and we'll go from there! The only thing that makes me wonder otherwise, is that in 1780, John was sent back to Nova Scotia to do a spy mission on Halifax Harbor and the Fort. He must have spent some time there and have been familiar... Hmmmmmmmmm....*scratches head* I agree, and I think you're probably on the right track though. These guys were not experienced sailors by the sounds of it and from what I know, and it was probably pretty apparent when they were captured, that they were not privateering. I'm guessing this capture was a piece of cake for the Brits! One correction, our rabble-rousers were not farmers. They lived in town. John's official profession, when he wasn't raising hell with the British, was as an accountant and he loaned money to pay soldier's wages during the revolution. Their house on what was then called Main St. in Medford, but is now named to honor Sarah as Fulton St., was a residential dwelling just down from Craddock's bridge and not farmland. Having given up their money and a lack of farmland could account for these families additional hardships, if food was already in short supply. I'm not certain of the other's mentioned in the letter. All the ones that I could make out- Robt. Fulton and the Pattens, were known rebels and they are all three mentioned in various places throughout the book Medford in the Revolution. Robert was apparently a cousin, but that is all I know of him. Again Deacon, thank you for you help and interest in this! It really helps to have another set of eyes to look at the words and pick out what I couldn't read- like landsmen and Boston. This has been tremendously helpful. I think you'll really enjoy the next letters, which I'll put up soon. John Fulton's spy mission in 1780.