hurricane

Fear not. There's a Home Depot on Roosevelt. A visiting Pirates headquarters it is... -- Hurricane

Here you go! Your dreams can come true... Bubblegum cigars, candy cigarettes and more. For me it was Fizzies. Soft drinks in Alka Seltzer style tablets... Root beer is by far the best. Enjoy! http://www.oldtimecandy.com/CandyList.htm -- Huricane

Oh, I so agree. Thankfully, it's kept us all in one level of "employment" in the trade or another. I'm just sensing burnout. Too much merchandising, hype and hangers on. Something's always got to give in pop culture. -- Hurricane

The gallows would be too far away from the bulk of the activities. Again, it's dangerous to keep moving people between two locations. Been tried there before. Failed miserably. We need to learn from the past and keep everything together at the beach during construction... You can't even see the fort from the location of the rest of the festival. You would have to move everyone out to the empty field which is a bit of a walk in the heat and is often used for overflow parking. -- Hurricane

We're in for a couple in our group. I will check with the rest of my crewe to see if they want them as well. Will report back on a complete group order for the 1680 camp. -- Hurricane

Thanks - I've become something of a fanatic on the subject - can't stand the Hollywood misrepresentations showing PR being on the shoreline of a mountainous region and such. PR is flat as a pancake. When the tsunami rolled across the harbor it was 20 feet and innundated everything except Fort Charles, which of course, is not on the edge of a cliff. :) Sorry POTC lovers. Port Royal hates what they did in the movie. And I just found out they really hate Keith Richards because of his pirating of native Jamaican music and claiming it as his own. Guess he's a better pirate than we all imagined. -- Hurricane On the subject, I think the masses will be at burnout point soon on pirates. It comes and goes in cycles. At least it has been for the last 25 years I've been pirating. The overcommercialisim is what's going to kill the market, not the movies. Can't blame Disney for cashing in but renaming Tom Sawyer Island is going a bit far, since the love of a genre can whiplash on you just as quickly... such is pop culture compared to the classics such as Twain. Just my 2¢.

Great looking show. Good luck on it!! Slight flaw in the episode descriptions... We'll also take a look at "Home Sweet Home" and their culture on land, and visit the many places that Pirates landed to relax, and refresh supplies and manpower, that have become some of today's popular tourist spots and major cities; from Port Royal in Jamaica to Macau in the South China Sea. Port Royal is neither a tourist spot or a major city. Today it is a sleepy fishing village of 1200 residents. There are few remnants of piracy left, since the town was destroyed not only by the earthquake of 1692, but hurricanes in 1711, 1722, a major fire in 1901 and another huge hurricane in 1952. Prior to the earthquake it was the economic rival of Boston and housed 8000 people. But the earthquaked killed 2000 outright and 3000 more died of injuries and disease. Port Royal was never the same, since two-thirds of the city literally sank into the harbor. Even representations of the GAoP of Port Royal have it all wrong. It was never again a pirate haven. In fact. Calico Jack was hung there in 1725 for piracy. Just like to keep the record straight on my favorite place in the world. -- Hurricane

When the cannon fire was along the beach it was awesome because the ships can get in much closer to respond in kind. It's quite amazing with the flintlocks blazing, cannon going off on shore and aboard ship. Also, it doesn't draw people away from the camps or the sutlers, which is important. In the heat it's not a pleasant trek from the beach to the fort and back. And many just would go to the fort, watch the cannons and leave the event... not good for all of us trying to teach, sell and entertain. -- Hurricane

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Morgan would have spoke with a Welsh accent if anything, certainly not English and definitely not Spanish. True to his character, I've begun to learn some Welsh in preparation for PiP. Even if Morgan spoke English in Port Royal, which of course was almost certain, I'm sure he would have drifted between that and using some Welsh phrases, particularly when angered. I'm always amazed at the number of Cockneys are at ren faires. Seems the King's English has taken a bit of a drubbing as of late at these events. Hardly the accent of a schooled gentleman or lady. -- Hurricane

We used the trees and some normal stakes. The ground is more dirt than sand there. We have no problems with the ground... -- Hurricane

Here's a few that I just grabbed out of iPhoto this morning for ya... Hurricane

If everyone shows up it's going to be absolutely incredible. I'm excited about the area. If you weren't there in 2004, that's the area we used then and in 03. You couldn't help but have the period feel there. Looking forward to it and the days are just counting by. -- Hurricane

So basically, it's where it was in 2004, before it moved inside the fort. If so -- woohoo! That's a great place to play pirate, other in the wooded groves near the upper part of the beach. To clarify then, the merchants (sutlers) and the encampments will all be in the same place, as will the entertainment and the all the activities. Also the part above the beach is ideal for cannon fire, far better than the fort if we're all over there anyway. -- Hurricane

Boy, do I sympathize with you on Northwest burn out. Give me a warm and sunny beach anytime... Hurricanes are no big deal unless you live on the beach. I moved here just before Charley, Francis and Jean. They aren't much different inland from the big storms we got in Seattle. The wind is a little stiffer but the rain is the same. I didn't think they were that big of deal. Florida is the absolute best prepared state in the nation to deal with these storms and any other disasters. I certainly would rather be here than when the big one hit Seattle some day. A well build house will sustain a lot of damage here that a house there couldn't take with a bit of shaking and quaking. I'm about to move to Melbourne in June to a new house about nine miles inland. In the past 60 years, there's never been winds above 110 there and I'm about 15 minutes from the beach. Woohoo! My house is rated to 130, my garage to 150 so I'm good. Boeing has a big presence on the Space Coast what with all the rockets and such at the Cape. Might get on there or with NASA. Lockheed is also big here. Florida as a whole is a boom state. I don't think you'll find any trouble getting on with someone down here... -- Hurricane

More likely under a large open tent. The illustrations and few paintings of PR at the time show temporary businesses in any of the open spaces, particularly near the harbor. This would be one of those places. With 8000 people in town on 55 acres, there was little room for new buildings so everyone just picked a place to do business until one of the available retail buildings opened up. Here's a typical building of the time. This is what one of the inns would have looked like. The lower level was for shops, taverns and such with the upper floors used for the inn. The merchant homes were even more splendid in size and design. A little ambitious for us to tackle... Hurricane

I recommend flying in on Wednesday. It's an all day trip to KW no matter how you go (even driving in from Orlando takes us 8 hours) and Thursday evening is the start of events. Same with the end. Most fly out Monday morning back home... -- Hurricane

Although we originally wanted to build an entire tavern at the fort (we have the set pieces), we decided to go with a tented solution instead. A painting of period Port Royal shows a tent across from the Catt & Fiddle tavern near the waterfront, and it is providing our inspiration. In essence, we will be an overflow of the tavern, part merchant, part tavern in the space. These were actually fairly common since merchants were eager to make a buck regardless of how they had to do it. So there was a lot of multi-function enterprises in town. Since a full fledged tavern would have required us to have 5,000 clay pipes in it (that's what they found in the tavern that was excavated there, the one we're patterning ours after, we will cut some corners obviously where it doesn't affect the impression. We envision a fairly large tent area since it will house re-enactors and serve as the tavern itself with benches for people to sit. We expect to have a few flagons on hand by then as well as serving pieces. Anyone who wants to participate is welcome to bring along their own period ware. We can provide direction, using Simon Benning's pieces that were recovered from the site. As I said earlier, life was as good if not better than it was in London at the time. Thanks to the large amount of smuggling and trading going on as well as the raids on Spanish, if you could think it up back then you could get it in Port Royal. Fashions were equal to London and mirrored the times. I can supply a list of people who were in town and their occupations if you like to give you an idea of who was who then. Once I get back from PyrateCon I will have some photos to share of the fashions of the times, every day wares, and architecture. -- Hurricane

I took all my sailing lessons at the Seattle Sailing School. Here's the link. http://www.seattlesailing.com/lessons/index.html Great teachers and nice craft... -- Hurricane

Don't freak out about weapons. I fly with mine all the time. I have a cardboard box for the crewe where they dump their swords, knives and black powder pistols into all the time. I just let them know what's in it at check in and have never had a problem. The only place that I've been to that I've left them home is Jamaica. They don't like the toys. Just make sure it's not in carryon, mention you have it when you check in in the checked luggage and most airlines could care less, particularly if you fly in costume because they're more interested in the outfit than the baggage. -- Hurricane

This is the current schedule (I just updated the site about a week ago). Things get more refined as the festival nears and really starts to gel about October. But this is a good start. -- Hurricane

Luckily, the job market down here is booming. Everyone that wants a job can get one. So you just have to probably have three months of rent money to cover your expenses... The rest of living expenses down here are equal to or less than Washington State. - Hurricane

Three years ago next month my trip began in Spokane. I had lived in Washington State all my life (45 years) --- I now wonder what took me so danged long to live in Florida. My home and pirate compound will be ready in June just a few minutes from the beach. Can't wait to settle in and get down to some serious pirootin now. The drive was a blast - 84 hours straight (I had someone to share driving). Spent almost whole day in South Dakota... Custer's Last Stand, Mt. Rushmore, gold panning, Corn Palace, the Badlands, then went non-stop from SD to Chattanooga. The rest of the drive to Florida was a cinch. Hope to see you down here some day! -- Hurricane

That'd be from 2005... great video. -- Hurricane