Misson

The question is, with all the amazing stuff Jack does, will he have time to celebrate his birthday? Happy birthday, old man! Here's to many more.

Cheers, Mae! See you in Key West? (I hate being one of the later ones to sign the card going round the office - all the good slogans are already taken.)

I found another reference to one: "[1675] ...yet we hoped we should get to windward of them [the Goodwin Sands] for neither our master nor mate nor any in the ship were very well acquainted with them: yet we hoped we should get to windward of them and carry clear into the Downs, for we saw the lighthouse very fair upon South Foreland, and the land showing as it were not half a mile from us, but it was very dark." (Barlow, p. 259) The ship, a merchant vessel called the fflorintine eventually wrecked upon the sands, despite the presence of the South Foreland lighthouse [which is in Dover]. You'll be relieved to know that no one was killed.

Actually, it's the stories that interest me. Like Cascabel's story about buying a shark that we were talking about in Twill. Or how Captain Sterling came to be a pirate-hunting captain. Or Michael Bagley's charge against the viking hoards (and bouncing off their wall of spears or whatever it was). Or the Bone Island Buccaneers night out in costume for fun that turned into a fan fest. Or Bilgmunkey's adventures in wrangling with The Man when trying to get a radio show going. Or Mary Diamond bringing a kilt to a gun-fight. Or Patrick Hand...anything about Patrick Hand, come to think of it... Etc. Etc. Etc. My experiences of rpg-ing mostly involved planning adventures for whiny prima-donna characters, sitting around a large table eating Cheetos, drinking sodas, rolling dice and imaging interesting stories. (Not that that's not fun, too.)

Ah. Well, he's probably not my type. (Unless I have deep urgings about which I have never yet been cognizant.)

:angry: And here it is in a nutshell, from the mouth of the common seaman (Edward Barlow - actually a bit uncommon as he wrote and drew and worked/lived as a seaman for 43 years...but you get the point): “[1672] So we steering our course through that narrow channel [near the island of ‘Pulocandore’(?) in the East Indies], we had several of our men sick of the ‘fflukes’ [flux], and I myself being very bad; the sea being an uncomfortable and bad place for sick men, and many are the miseries that poor seamen endure at sea when they are sick, having small means to comfort themselves with, for there they cannot run and fetch what meat and drink they think will do them good. There they want both fresh meat and drink of all sorts, with both fruits and roots, which the sick on land do not lack to give themselves comfort with, and we having no other thing to eat and drink, to restore health, and comfort ourselves with, unless we can eat a piece of hard biscuit cake, or a piece of old salt beef or pork, and maybe both stinking and rotten, having lain in pickle one year or two and nothing to drink but a little fresh water, many times both stinking and dirty, and yet cannot get half enough of it. And the surgeons and doctors of physic in ships many times are very careless of a poor man in his sickness, their common phrase being to come to him and take him by the hand when they hear that he hath been sick two or three days, thinking that is soon enough, and feeling his pulses when he is half dead, asking when he was at stool, and how he feels himself, and how he has slept, and then giving him some of their medicines upon the point of a knife, which doeth as much good to him as a blow upon the pate with a stick.” (Barlow, p. 214) Note: Barlow, for all his splendid prose, is a bit of a whiner. I am actually growing a bit weary of the term "poor seaman" which I swear he uses every five or ten pages. He's pretty adamant in advising young men not to chose the sea as their vocation, but he was similarly shrill and negative about bartending and linen whitening, each of which he tried before going to sea. Still, this is one of the best period narratives I've come across yet.

:angry: Does she have a sister?

I must be old - I haven't bought a book since the first edition was out. (You must drive your wife crazy, John. :angry: )

Yet another reference from Barlow, this one from a merchant ship going to the East Indies, the Expedition in 1670: “…we had three med dead, and one that had a wife aboard, her husband dying the same night we came to anchor at the island.” (Barlow, p. 183)

I keep coming across the same thing in multiple sources which I was astounded at until I started thinking about why I was so. So here's something else they ate that you can't, but for a completely different reason. "“In the South Atlantic the crew of the Unity got tired of salted provisions and caught dolphins, the flesh of which was enjoyed by all the ship’s company. " (W.R. Thrower, Life at Sea in the Age of Sail, p. 88) "[1721]We saw also abundance of flying Fish, and their continual Enemies, the Albicore and Dolphin, the latter we strike now and then with a Fizgig, or Harping-iron. It is a glorious-colour'd, strait Fish, four or five Foot long, forked Tail, perpendicular to the Horizon: plays familiarly about Ships; is of dry Taste, but makes good Broth. They are seldom seen out of the Latitudes of a Trade wind; and the flying fish never: These are the bigness of small Herrings; their Wings about two thirds its length; come narrow from the Body, and end broad; they fly by the help of them a Furlong at a time when pursued, turning in their Flight, sometimes dip in the Sea, and so up again,; the Wind making them, but this Expedient, fleeter." (John Atkins, A Voyage to Guinea, Brazil and the West Indies, p. 33-4) “[1670] And not long afterward we had a score of fish which followed us for a fortnight, of bonetas and ‘albecores’ and some ‘dolfines’, which were a great refreshment to us, we taking many of them; and many times flying fish would fly into the ship as we were sailing along, for being chased out of the water by the bonetas and other fish, to escape their lives, not seeing in the night, they fly on board.” (Edward Barlow, Barlow's Journal, p. 181)

And some more from Barlow's Journal: “[1669] Here [Leghorn, Italy] are many kind-hearted courtesans and brothel-houses, where many a man empties his pockets of moneys in keeping company with them, and here are some English men and women who live here which keep the trade going, and having had custom in England, or played some rogues’ and whores’ tricks they come to such places as this, and set up their shops. There are such English men and women in most places of any great trade, both in Spain and ‘Portangell’ [Portugal], and in some places in Italy, and suchlike houses of entertainment are in most places where any ships come, that trade never failing till it hath confounded both body and soul into Hell, for go where you will, you shall sooner find where you may learn vice than virtue, for the way that leadeth to destruction is wide and easy to be found.” (Barlow, p. 163-4)

This probably adds little or nothing to the foregoing discussion as it seems to have been agreed that stripes were used in clothing, but I noticed it and thought I should pop it into the much-debated stripe issue. "[1668]So staying there [Tripoli] two or three days, some of the country boats came on board of us with things to sell, as your linen stripes and blue linen and your sponges, which they gather about the seashore, being hereabout very plentiful, and also fruits and suchlike.” (Barlow, p. 156) It may not even be referring to stripes, but to strips, except the modern editor and then owner of the original Barlow's Journal, Basil Lubbock, went to a great deal of trouble to make unclear things clear. So I'm inclined to believe he was indeed talking about stripes, although not having the original journal, it's difficult to say. In fact, having the original journal, I suspect it would be difficult to say. Anyhow...

Boccherini: La Musica Nocturna Dell Strade Di Madrid No. 6, Op. 30 (Which is essentially what you said, with all the trimmings added. It's on the soundtrack; they only play a bit of the middle in the movie.) Curiously, when I was presenting my trepanation tool in Hampton at the Blackbeard event, I'd occasionally ask people if they'd seen M&C - where they do a really good trapanation on the old sailor - and nobody, but nobody, said yes! Mission, that tune is actually in two spots on the movie, during the closing scene and also, if you are patient and watch the credits, at the point that the art director is on screen, there is a full orchestra rendition of the piece. ( told ya i watched far too many times). Whats odd is that the sound track from the movie has yet again two completely different takes then the ones used in the movie. At Hampton, we played that tune every set, it woulda been fun to do your trepaning spiel during the song. So they're not the same? Oho! (Some soundtrack afficianado I turned out to be!) I actually got hold of the soundtrack specifically for that song! (I liked the characterization of the doctor in that movie. He was very logical and outsider-ish. I am guessing that this is because he was portrayed that way in the books, although for some reason I haven't been able to stick the first one for more than a 100 pages or so.) I didn't catch your playing of it at Hampton - are you going to be at PiP?

Huzzah! (I believe you have pushed up the date? Or am I remembering this wrongly?) Here's to you two!

Boccherini: La Musica Nocturna Dell Strade Di Madrid No. 6, Op. 30 (Which is essentially what you said, with all the trimmings added. It's on the soundtrack; they only play a bit of the middle in the movie.) Curiously, when I was presenting my trepanation tool in Hampton at the Blackbeard event, I'd occasionally ask people if they'd seen M&C - where they do a really good trapanation on the old sailor - and nobody, but nobody, said yes!

Actually, my house is very dark. The Banana and other two plants there get 12 hours of grow light (two bulbs) per manufacturer recommendation. I have two other grow lights for the tropical plants in the Pirate-Themed Living Room (The fixture and plants can both be seen on that page). That room is exceedingly dark due to the heavy canvas curtains and position of the windows. They get six hours of light a day as they are already too big. The banana is going outside soon as it's so hot and muggy around here. I think it will enjoy that. (Plus those stupid lights are pretty expensive to run.) As for any other implications, never tried the stuff, never will. Several people I know who do regularly seem to behave in ways very scattered and I like my mind the way it is. So there's no illicit plants in my house, despite the plethora of grow lights. As for their healthiness - I guess I have the touch. I seem to have very good luck with plants. I was talking with someone from Detroit on another forum who can't get tropical plants to grow at all around here. Most of mine have been thriving since I bought them two or three years ago.

And here is my Goldfinger banana plant as of this morning. (Mary Diamond was just talking about it in the Coco-nut Thread, so I thought I'd share photos of my progeny. (Everyone go "Ooh", "Ahh" and "It has your ears.")

Thanks, Coastie! I'll add it to my watch list. I usually spend Saturday mornings searching the eBay medical antique and medical devices categories on eBay and then add them to my watch list for further consideration. (I almost never place a bid within more than 24 hours of auction close. For some reason one bid seems to increase interest and bidding in something on eBay, so I find it's better to wait and see what happens.) From my experience, tooth extractors tend to go for $60 - $150. The fact that this already has a bid although it appears to have just been posted suggests it will go for over $100 from what I've seen. Tooth extractors actually quite popular for some reason. (My thought is that it's because they're so barbaric looking.) Although my impression is that that handle style is typical of the early/mid 19th century. I could be wrong, though. I wonder why he believes it to be late 18th? ("Sir, what is the provenance of this piece?" )

What a great story! (Stories like that are the reason I find re-enacting and re-enactors so much fun.)

We need to ransom our Quartermaster from the natives of the desert! (The whole state of Utah is desert, isn't it?) This actually has period precedent. "And there [Algiers] being some Englishmen that were slaves and had been taken sailing with other nations as the 'Holenders' [Dutch (Holland)] and French and 'Portangalls [Portuguese] and others [like Utah], making their petition to our Admiral for to do what we could for their releasement, so a speech was made in our ship to desire from every man in all the ships five shillings to be taken from their short allowance money and given as a free gift towards the ransome of so many poor men in slavery. [Darned Utah slave drivers!] So every man gave his consent freely, and thus there were twelve or fourteen redeemed from slavery, paying in Spanish money thirty or forty pounds a-piece for their ransome in English sterling." (Barlow's Journal, Edward Barlow, p. 153)

True. (Just don't make me the head officer if the worst should happen. Pressed warrant officers make for sucky leaders. (Captain Jim, Captain Jim!))

I have a pretty good kit which is not exactly period, but it's close. Much of my pricier tools (well, pricier when they are authentic) are repro from G. Gedney Godwin. As near as I can figure, their stuff is from the early RevWar or a bit after that. They have some neat items that include a telescope and compass you can see on their webpage here, but I didn't see any navigational equipment. Still, might be worth a deeper look than I gave it. My pocket kit is probably late 19th, early 20th century. You can see bits of here: The kit itself is underneath the handle of the large clyster syringe and contains a very non-period clasp (which is why it was tucked under there). The lancet (11) and scalpels (which you can't see in that picture because I used my more correct Godwin repros(14)) have tortoise-shell handles & steel blades (which are period) and little hooks for flipping them open (which I'm pretty sure are not correct). However, if you come across someone else selling more period-correct repos, color me fascinated to hear about it. My real challenge is finding a proper large bone saw. I really, really, really want one like Woodall shows in his book The Surgeon's Mate, but so far am striking out on finding a craftsman to make one. It looks like this: Real ones go for $700+ (and I mean +!)

William is not the Captain.... he is the Quaartermaster, we don't have a Captain. I hope things change so William and his wife can make it tho..... Me too, but he sounds pretty positive that he's not going to make it. While it's true he's not the captain, we were bandying the idea of having a captain awhile back. And, as hurricane notes, William is the de-facto leader.

Actually, I was thinking mostly of solar-powered cars, which is what we were talking about originally. I think. However, I have also seen homes with batteries for solar power. When you get into areas with less sun, solar can only be a feasible total energy-system replacement if there's a way to store the power for non-sun periods. (However, the trend seems to have been toward solar power with a needed back-up standard power source. On the plus side, if I understand it rightly, when you're not using the power being generated, you can feed it back into the energy grid and the energy companies must pay you for supplying them.) Last I heard, battery storage becomes less efficient over time and they must be replaced eventually. The solar cars I've seen require large and many batteries to store energy. On top of that cars get replaced regularly and the batteries must go somewhere. (Hopefully to recycle, although I'll bet more recyclables go to landfill than recycle.) Solar, wind and wave will be the energies of the future if they can devise a way to make them more reliable. (And I think they can, but it seems to be taking a lot of time. My folks have had solar heat since the bad ol' Carter years, but it's a direct feed system with no batteries. That option was too expensive - not to mention to heavy for the rafters to support.)

Interesting. Those are the same as some of containers used for pocket surgical kits from the period. Makes sense, I suppose. (If that frightens you, don't even start trying to buy medical kits from period. I know I can't afford 'em...)