hurricane

Throw it out... they're loss is my gain as it ends up on the auction block these days. I barely lost out to a set of doors from the ride to that Johnny Depp fella. If I'd known it was him against me I would have pushed the bid more than I did... -- Hurricane

Wish the same could be said for DisneyWorld. There just doesn't seem to be a downtime there. Right now, it's Aussies, South Americans and African families on summer holiday. I wonder if families from Africa think it strange to come all the way across the ocean to visit Animal Kingdom. So we still have all the kiddies here---- enjoy! -- Hurricane

Obviously we're all getting the drift that you two are no longer together. For that, I am sorry. Just wish it didn't have to be aired by postings on this site. Broken hearts are hard enough to deal with without airing private matters publicly. Been there. Done that. No good comes of it. If that's you Diego, I won't be contributing to the fire sale on your stuff, lad. A true pirate is always a pirate. I got rid of my stuff three different times for much the same reason and I kept coming back to it while the others who stomped on me fell by the wayside over time. Mates can be replaced, but a good weapon will always be by your side. Keep your stuff - there are lots of other ships and crewes to sail with... You can always sail with the crewe of The Blackheart. -- Hurricane

I don't know of any published works, except those of Marx in the 50's. The more substantial excavations happened in the late 80s, including land excavations of the old church and Chocolata Hole. But nothing has been published. I have several of the theses that were published as a result of the study of the artifacts that I can post here. They are pretty interesting. They're the ones I referred to earlier. Otherwise, the bulk of records, artifacts and photos of the site reside with the Trust. The nice thing is they were willing to come out and speak with a group of just six of us down there. Dorrick was very helpful and was happy to answer our questions about the artifacts and the sunken city. If we can get the festival put together down there next year (07) in Port Royal, we hope to have him do a formal presentation for all the gathered pirates. -- Hurricane

Actually, two watches were recovered and matched the time exactly. I think you would have enjoyed the presentation by Dorrick Gray, acting director of the Jamaican Heritage National Trust. He has dived the city on many occasions and has detailed records, not only about the site, but what happened during that time frame, right down to sonar imaging of the ground slipping and shifting. He was involved in the original archeology of the site and is the one who presented the time to us, based on the historical records of those who were there plus the two watches to confirm it. I think he's a pretty good source, given his expertise on the subject. I was an amazing presentation by the way, complete with photos from the pipe shop there with hundreds of clay pipes still intact, just as they fell off the shelves that day and additional images of the shop floors, complete with intact herringbone brick work. We are working with him in some respects on options to allow divers to got to the sunken city on a guided tour. There are many obstacles, of course, including the risk of damage to the artifacts and buildings down there. But we gave him some great input and ideas to present. Hopefully we'll all be able to see first hand what life really was like there. I do recommend reading the theses of Thornton, Franklin, Donachie, Darrington and McClenaghan that cover much of what we're talking about. Their research includes the inventories of different town residents (you would be surprised, I think to find out just how much golds and precious stones even a shopkeeper had in his possessions) along with various analyses of life in Port Royal at that time, including the cultural diversity and international character of the two, the buccaneers and sea rovers. If you haven't gotten the Sea Rover's Practice yet, I think you will find it a fascinating read. I just completed the part that explained the unlikelihood of a pirate vessel even meeting up with a member of the Navy's guard fleet on the high seas and even when they did meet, how hard it was to engage if the winds were not favorable. Many records of enemy ships passing within 500 yards and not able to engage, due to the winds and lack of range of a ship's guns. It's an amazingly well researched book. Hope this gives you some additional resources to work with. -- Hurricane

Greetings all! I am working on a script for an orchestra event we'll be guest soloists at (yes, now you have heard everything, pirates as guest soloists). The script could use a few Shel Silverstein poems about pirates. I think they're in Where The Sidewalk Ends. I found The Pirate, posted elsewhere on the site. Can anybody copy and paste any of the others into here? Thank ye kindly! -- Hurricane

It is a superb book, not only about tactics but what differentiated buccaneers from pirates in terms of motivation and techniques. Brilliant piece of work, and I'm only half through as well. -- Hurricane

I stand by my statement. Though I am no expert on GOaF - I leave that to others, I am well versed in Jamaican history as far as buccaneers and pirates were concerned. And I stand by my statement as far as Jamaica. I have been through the actual documents there in the national archives in Spanish Town and have spoken extensively with the directors of the heritage trust there, so I am confident in my sources and the references I quoted. The naval forces there were quite ineffectual up until about the mid 1720s. I would think the Jamaicans would know their own history. In fact, they know world history far better than we do. I don't want to get in an uproar about a Dan Quayle and Murphy Brown subject. I was simply sharing my areas of knowledge and expertise. I'm sorry that they don't jibe with your interpretations. I didn't mean to offend or try to assail your suppositions. -- Hurricane

Those ships were ineffectual in stopping the plundering of ships in the area by pirates. Coastal vessels and plantations continued to be plundered by the likes of Brown, Vane and Winter. Said Governor Sir Nicholas Lawes, sarcastically in 1719, "I am sorry I have it to say, that His Majesty's ships of war attending the island have either been stationed at not to have been in the way of the pirates and Spanairds, or else had the misfortune not to meet with them." Only the brashest, rashest and most miscalculating pirates were caught. Far more pirates went free than ever went to trial. The smart ones simply blended in with the surroundings, carried on with their business and eventually disappeared, either into legitimate trade or a naturally short life span. The same could be said about any criminal activity today. Even though murder, drug dealing and rape is illegal, the perpetrators of these crimes could be sitting next to you in a bar and you'd never know it. Only the most notorious have their faces out in the public on wanted posters. A good criminal then, as now, blends in. They don't advertise their trade except to those who can be trusted, most often fellow criminals. An average pirate could easily move among the populace, not looking much different than a normal sailor. -- Hurricane

I think a visit to Port Royal would change your mind some. I have been there on several occasions and the belief that the earthquake destroyed Port Royal in 1692 is based on some myth. Yes, 13 acres of the town sank in about two minutes. Most of the other homes were destroyed. Fort Charles still stood. Residents took refuge on one of the ships still afloat, in homes still standing and the fort itself. The town then began to rebuild almost immediately, as it has several times since. It was a strategic point of defense for the island. The fort and other fortifications were quickly rebuilt to repell the French Invasion of 1694. The town followed. In Januray 1704 the town burned to the ground, but by May fifty new houses had appeared, four or five taverns and a butcher. By August some 300 families lived in Port Royal. The town continued to rebuild and expand into the GAoP. As a trading port, and I quote here, "Kingston was difficult to access, and could not be defended [due to the world's 7th largest harbor]: besides, it was unhealthy 'situated between a great swamp of morass and the Rising Sun and the Trade Winds, which blew noisesome smells from the ships, swamps and mangroves." Many of Kingston's original settlers feld back to Port Royal to escape the epidemics which were ravaging Kingston. Finally, if piracy was so distasteful there during the GAoP, then why were pirates still in town? Why did the likes of Blackbeard, Rackham, Bonny Read and a host of other famous names visit and live in the town during that time, if the city was indeed a stronghold of the navy? There was definitely strong commerce, trade and economic base there. Port Royal never regained its infamousy as the wickedest city on earth, but it was still a very important trading port, and more important, a very important strategic stronghold for Jamaica itself. I know this is off topic, but I think many of the statements on Port Royal are not really accurate, at least compared to the history that's actually there in Port Royal, Spanish Town and Jamaica as a whole. -- Hurricane Back on topic for a moment... :) Port Royal itself was a center of international trade and its residents were of wide international birthright. It was not all English or Europeans. Far from it. The crews of buccaneer days were from a wide range of nationalities, and they settled there and brought their ethno-centric tastes with them to town as well. You could infer that they brought their local tastes (from where they came) and either turned it into marketable wares or purchased complementary wares from the vast warehouses containing goods from all over the world. Obviously, goods from China, the Far East, Africa, India and South America got there somehow, either by contact with foreign ships or through direct import by legitimate traders.

At the time of Port Royal's heydays as a buccaneer stronghold, it's importance in international trade was unrivaled, the nearest comparison being latter day Boston. The port had trade from all over the world, legitimate and illegitimate in nature. The warehouses and shops were loaded with goods from Africa, South America, Europe and the Far East, particularly China. Buccaneers were equally diverse in their nationalities, and perhaps just as important, trades. They were not sailors as a rule, but tinkers, tailors, tradesmen and regular working folk. And their understanding to the world was somewhat more sophisticated than we would like to imagine. You're correct that the earthquakes (there were three of them, increasingly stronger, withing two minutes time, total) of 1692, devestated the town. But it hardly destroyed it. The town did rebuild and played host to the like of Calico Jack (the cay where they hung him is just offshore, albeit, under water now), Blackbeard, Anne Bonny and Mary Read. That was the second golden age of Port Royal, which rebuilt more rapidly than history tells us. Trade continued unabated in Jamaica and Port Royal after the earthquake of 1692, hurricanes in 1712, 1722, 1726, 1744 and 1751. In fact, pieces of eight continued to be the preferred coinage for trade until 1839 on the island, long after the Golden Age pirates and buccaneers had vanished. Compared to the pirates of the Golden Age, buccaneers were mostly landsmen. They did appreciate the finer things in life and their homes in Jamaica were filled with fine silks, porcelains, pewter (made in Port Royal) and other imports. Pirates/buccaneers didn't need large ships - ports of trade were conveniently sprinkled about their entire area of influence. Tortuga and Port Royal are just two of hundreds, from the far reaches of South America to the Florida peninsula. And even pirogues, a favorite of buccaneers, were some 30 to 40 feet long and could hold up to 40 men. Some used by the french were massive, carved from a single 40' cedar tree. The trade of precious gems, silver and gold was huge in the Caribbean, both in the times of the buccaneers and the pirates of the next century. Cargo was only valuable if it could be sold. Profit was the name of the game here, there was no nobility in piracy. No prey, no pay was the watchwords for crews aboard these ships. An otherwise efficient captain could be readily deposed if money didn't come their way while on the the account. As such, the Spanish routes from the emerald, silver and gold mines became the primary reason piracy flourished in the Caribbean. Spanish ships, at least in buccaneer times, were the reason much of the English and French held regions in the Caribbean prospered so. They were built with Spanish goods and blood. As for clothing... many ship's articles of the time provided crew members the right to a new shift of clothes from the prize, so their clothing (again, I speak of the buccaneer period) would be a bit more varied than the typical sailor togs of the later period, when crews were composed of ordinary sailors instead of landsmen. Landsmen did care more about how they dressed, as the lived in Port Royal and other ports when not aboard a buccaneer ships. Wills of the time demonstrate the fluent lifestyle of many buccaneers during this time. I think the case for sailor clothing aboard ships of the Golden Age has been well demonstrated here by others with more knowledge than I of the GaoP. Finally, trade with undesirables was as it is now. If you have something I need and I have the money to pay for it, I don't care who you are or what you do. Just look at the Black Market in existence today. Governments and its peoples are always ready to turn the other cheek when it can benefit their economical or political needs. Pirates were an accepted part of society for the goods and bounty they provided and the plunder they readily spent in the taverns and whorehouses when in port. Just random thoughts... -- Hurricane

A fine bottle of Cab... -- Hurricane

This is what one reader said about it: For those who love historical texts, but sometimes have a hard time weeding thru the period language, overly technical jargon and miles of microfiche, this book is a real blessing. The author not only deals with the methods of tracking, chasing and boarding prey, but goes happily in-depth about the people who follow the "sweet trade". He covers the buccaneer lifestyle on land as well as at sea, the events leading up to their rise in influence in the Caribbean, and goes into clothing, food, religion, heirarchy, weapons, flags,choice of ships and cultural relationships. I picked up this book primarily to confirm or disprove my theories on individual weapons combat during boarding actions and while the techniques are not played up in any great detail,citing the use of powder and grenades over cutlass and knife, the reasonings behind what weapons were used and how unorthodox hand to hand combat could be in closed quarters are sound. Interesting to note that not all buccaneers were young and die early. One was 84 and had transitioned from buccaneering to piracy. -- Hurricane

Patrick, Have you read The Sea Rover's Practice yet? It has great insights to the whys and where fores of the Buccaneer age and goes a bit into the Golden Age, but mostly for contrast. It has some different takes on why and who took to buccaneering and what they brought to the table. Amazing stuff there and seamingly well researched with tons of references and resources. The thing has something like six appendices alone. As I take on the Captain Morgan character during that time, it is a fascinating read. Here's a review from Amazon... To read of sea roving's various incarnations—piracy, privateering, buccaneering, la flibuste, la course—is to bring forth romantic, and often violent, imagery. Indeed, much of this imagery has become a literary and cinematic cliché. And what an image it is! But its truth is by halves, and paradoxically it is the picaresque imagery of Pyle, Wyeth, Sabatini, and Hollywood that is often closer to the reality, while the historical details of arms, tactics, and language are often inaccurate or entirely anachronistic. Successful sea rovers were careful practitioners of a complex profession that sought wealth by stratagem and force of arms. Drawn from the European tradition, yet of various races and nationalities, they raided both ship and town throughout much of the world from roughly 1630 until 1730. Using a variety of innovative tactics and often armed with little more than musket and grenade, many of these self-described "soldiers and privateers" successfully assaulted fortifications, attacked shipping from small craft, crossed the mountains and jungles of Panama, and even circumnavigated the globe. Successful sea rovers were often supreme seamen, soldiers, and above all, tacticians. It can be argued that their influence on certain naval tactics is felt even today. "The Sea Rover's Practice" is the only book that describes in exceptional detail the tactics of sea rovers of the period—how they actually sought out and attacked vessels and towns. Accessible to both the general and the more scholarly reader, it will appeal not only to those with an interest in piracy and in maritime, naval, and military history, but also to mariners in general, tall-ship and ship-modeling enthusiasts, tacticians and military analysts, readers of historical fiction, writers, and the adventurer in all of us. It just came out at the end of August of this year. Amazon carries it. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/157488910...929444?n=283155 -- Hurricane

I figured you'd be in there Capt. Morgan. They are pretty footies, aren't they? I see you've achieved fiend status as well. Welcome aboard all fiends. Your fellow fiend and friend, -- Hurricane

I'd be interested in getting a pair, sir. Toss my tricorn into the ring and let me know what you need and when. -- Hurricane

Well said, GoF. Unfortunately now you'll have the Velcro Nazis up in arms over whether it was white or black Velcro. :) Wishing doesn't make it so. As much as we want to conform piracy to our visions, a lot of what we know comes from popular literature and movies. One would assume that pirates didn't look any different than those in society in general. Even when placing a pirate on land, he would blend for the most part with the gentry. Not much different than today. Pirates today don't wear flashy garb - they have baseball caps and New York Yankee tank tops (at least one photo I saw). Of course, there were those who were flashy. Sir Henry Morgan never dressed down from what I can glean of his history - he dressed the part of an Admiral of the Black, right down to his last days. I know other captains did as well, at least when when in port. But for the most part, pirates were indeed sailors and they wore what worked on a ship. I don't think any revisionism will change that. That doesn't mean, however, that one historical fact can be applied across the boards. There are always exceptions. Take pieces of eight for example. When we were at the Money Museum in Jamaica, we found that pieces of eight remained the country's primary currency until 1839, much later than I thought. The locals kept rejecting attempts to replace it with other forms of currency. So if you're a pirate or sailor roaming the streets of Spanish Town or Port Royal, even after the Golden Age (by the way, Port Royal was much different than most of us think during GaoP, but that's another subject), you can carry pieces of eight well into the early 19th century and be accurate. Like Patrick, I now go both ways. I have my more authentic Sir Henry look and my fantasy play clothes. Both are fine and I understand the differences historically now after learning a lot here. And I'm good with either, depending on the circumstances. To pyracy in all its forms, huzzah I say!!!! -- Hurricane

Will do on both counts, Jib. Thanks!!! -- Hurricane

'Tis a nice piece of work but no one's putting me in anything that rocks unless it's the deck of the ship underneath me feet. Rockers are for old folks and nursing mothers.... -- Hurricanes

Bulk wine is where it's at mates. Sweet to the lips, tender to the tummy and right to the head it goes. -- Hurricane

We'll be lookin' for you after the new year, lass! I think you'll like our merry band of misfits, rogues, fiends and bon vivants. Hurricane

I like Pirates in Port Royal... it fits nicely with the general Pirates in Paradise concept. There are rumblings of a third festival in the Bahamas in September. So you would have Port Royal in Spring, Bahamas in Fall and PiP in Winter. Ah, a pirate's life for me!!! -- Hurricane

I knew I should have been taking my English as a Second Language class more seriously. I reread it while not under the influence of cheap red wine and see what you were saying now. Thanks for the clarification.... -- Hurricane

Unfortnately, fall is hurricane season down our way. And Port Royal and Jamaica is a favorite target as of late so our tall ship contacts don't want to be caught out at sea during that time in transit. Hurricane season runs from June to November and then we run into a conflict with Pirates in Paradise... -- Hurricane

Port Royal is very, very different than Kingston. It's a very small town where everyone knows one another and it's far removed from the hustle and bustle of Port Royal. We ventured all through the town and into the deep dark wooded areas in search of piracy and artifacts. All the locals were extremely friendly and helpful. They loved the fact that we were there to honor their history. There is absolutely no tourism here to speak, so there's no crime there, except the usual local spats and drunken episodes. Even our wenches felt fine walking down there and we didn't have any period weapons on us... As for Kingston, there are areas of poverty there. We've been to parts of Kingston and Spanish town without any problem. First, few people want to confront or engage a person who looks like a pirate :). Second, Jamaica's attitude in general has stablized and everyone we met asked us if we were going to return to the US and let people here know what Jamaica is really like today. As with any country or city, there are parts you don't want to be walking at night. But for the most part, the areas we would be going to in Kingston are entirely safe. -- Hurricane