Matty Bottles

Actually, Zorg, a playmat sort of thing would go over big with the parents I know. Done playing? Okay, just roll up the playmat with all the pieces still on it, tie the ends closed with the attached cords, and stash it in the closet or under the bed. You, sir, are a genius.

That carpet looks like the perfect color for stormy waters. As a child I had to put up with an ugly red-orange carpet. *Sigh* There's only so many adventures one can have on 'Lava.'

Happy Birthday!

I just got done reading that book again! Grand adventure. Who cares what anachronisms and myths it perpetuates, once you find yourself caught up in its pages.

I just got done reading that book again! Grand adventure. Who cares what anachronisms and myths it perpetuates, once you find yourself caught up in pages.

http://www.cargolaw.com/presentations_pira...tml#anti_piracy

Thank you.

"She be the right age" pertains to her being Bill's offspring, and nothing else. They ask her about the coin being a family heirloom to try to establish if this the child to whom Bill sent the coin. When they spilled her blood, they were trying to get Bill's bloodline on the coin. It's all related. This is my idea of chronology. They discover they are cursed. Perhaps Bill discovers before the others. In any case, he sends the coin off to his kid. The pirates discover the curse and search to retrieve the coins. They find out Bill sent off the coin so they kill him. Then they discover they need blood as well as the coin to free themselves from the curse. So they look for the coin AND THE CHILD. When Will and Elizabeth are children, the Black Pearl is an active threat, albeit a phantom-y one. But when they're adults, people doubt its existence. Because the coin hadn't touched water in those intervening eight years or so, the Black Pearl faded away, so to speak, their activities diminshed, because the coin wasn't calling to them. If you recall, one of the marines didn't even believe the Black Pearl was a real ship. That indicates to me it hadn't been sited in a while. When the coin hit the water - lo and behold, the Pearl appears! I think the water is the key.

I remember dark water because that ws the first network cartoon I ever saw where someone actually got killed. Darkwater was WAY to serious to stay on TV. Not because the kids would mind, but because of their parents.

Hope yer enjoying yer natal holiday, matey.

Yeah, conte's a fine company, but a bit pricey. I like that scale, too. What I've found works well is to get yer captain and QM from conte, and then to save money order the rest of yer crew from barzso. Barzso molds are plastic but the quality of the figures is some of the best I've ever seen. That may not be saying much for plastic, but still....also, they have a pirate jolly boat set, a cannon crew set, and, if yer still not happy with yer level of knavery and naval combat, ye can order the F&I colonial militia for privateers and the Redcoat whaleboat crew for marines. The site is http://www.barzso.com Barzso made a tallship, too, the Hispaniola for the Treasure Island playset. I can't find it for sail. It looks like a decent hull but lousy rigging. Heck, I can replace the rigging. I've even been thinking about building me own hull out of balsa. Anyone have any ship plans they'd care to share?

Thanks for the info. The biggest vessel I've ever sailed was an eighteen-foot catamaran. Not exactly a grand pirate vessel. Of course, my boy scout troop only got a fifty-foot vessel AFTER I moved. My old Scoutmaster, a hairy-nostriled Manchunian with a serious excelsior complex, the sort of man upon whose back was built the British Empire, has no qualms sailing with his teenage (and younger) crew from Chicago to Traverse City(!), the Edmund Fitzgerald notwithstanding.

The pirates were the best part of that cartoon. Obviously. Do you remember when Pan decided to kill Hook once and for all, and devised this great big spear launching thing, and had Hook all tied up, and was threatening Hook and Hook just laughed, saying he had lived a life richer than most, whereas Peter Pan hadn't grown up and would never grow up, and that death didn't bother Hook at all since he had recieved this great gift of growing up, and Peter got mad and forgot all about Hook and flew away and grew up into an old man in like two weeks and never-never land began to collapse because peter didn't have an imagination anymore....man that was awesome!!!

Just wondering: with no diesel, how many hands do you need to control the Royaliste?

Well, as a young lad I really enjoyed the appeal of pirates. I think it had to do with sword play. I liked everything that involved swords - knights, samurai, robin hood, pirates and jedi knights. It just seemed like such a cooler way to fight someone. And since I was a gentle soul at heart, I appreciated how visually exciting it was to watch. You could have a brilliant sword fight, and no one could get hurt (whereas a gunfight with no casualities is just boring). I watched Treasure Island, wrote stories and drew pictures of pirates,a nd then, when I got older, I watched the princess bride and wrote stories and drew pictures of pirates. I joined Boy Scouts and became a rather astute camper, even though I couldn't be bothered to earn any merit badges. My attitude was simple: I knew how to do it, and some little cloth patch wasn't going to help me do it any better. However, I did earn two merit badges: Sailing and Rowing. (I knew how to canoe, but once again, I was too cocky and didn't bother to fill out my paper work, despite several dozen trips through class III (OLD class III) rapids. Hell, I canoed over a dam once with cheerful results.) Then I stopped spending my time doing fun stuff, because I moved and had no friends with either equipment or inclination. Then I went to college, and had no time nor money. Then I graduated, went on some more canoe trips, and a few years later saw POTC, formed a Pirate support group, and here I am.

Well, piracy is still a threat to commercial shipping (and to port cities along the Indian ocean.) In fact, I read somewhere that several SBS and SAS veterans started a "ship retrieval" company to board captured ships, kill or otherwise incapacitate the pirate threat, free the crew (if still on board and still alive) and generally prevent thugs and villains from setting the ship controls on autopilot and leaving the ship to run aground along the coast somewhere.

That is very interesting, since I, too was dropped as a child. As a baby, in fact. By my sister, who was pretending to be Mom in Mom's high heels. Down a flight of steps. Really. My nose resembles neither my father's nose nor my mother's. And it's because my face was all smashed up. Sometimes, if I do something particularly goofy, as I am wont to do, people will ask "Were you dropped on your head as a child?" and I will turn on them quite fiercely and say "Yes! Yes I was! Do you think that's funny? My mother was in anguish for months!" and they will weep with remorse.

Who is this pirate Charlotte Saavy? She reminds me of Miss Doyle. Anyway, I, too have had similar epiphanies. In fact, I had the exact moment of West Indian recognition that you did, Charlotte, except for two differences: One, I kept the revelation to myself. Two, I promptly forget it, and made the same realization three or four more times until I remembered it. I sniffed gasoline as a child.

Happy Birthday... Hope ye get a good haul o' equipment and sundries to assist in yer re-enacting.

Well, if Nix's Mate is really nothing more than a small pile of rocks AND it's stained with pirate blood, I think it's thoroughly unsuitable for fesitivities.

Thanks for the link! I read about the islands a few months ago in Smithsonian magazine. It's nice to get a little more information than the pretty map in the magazine allows.

So He's jumping off of buildings is he....I thought he broke his back falling out of a third story building a few years ago or so....doesn't seem like a lad who pays much attention to his mistakes, eh?

I just read about how the park district in boston is trying to remind people of the great islands that can be found in Boston Harbor. I must confess I'm intrigued by some of the names. The Graves, Nixes mate, World's End, Hangman Island.... they seem just crying out for a pirate festival, don't they? Of course, I've never been on the islands, and I don't know what they look like. Have you had the pleasure of exploring the islands?

So yer grandsire was a pilot in Boston Harbor? From what I understand Boston Harbor is a hellish sort of place for ship traffic, no deeper than thirty feet and frequently less than a third that. I understand there are islands that are only islands during high tide, whereas during low tide they are peninsulas connected by spits of gravel. If ever there was a place in need of a pilot! Yer grandsire must have had some stories to tell.

In any case, I don't mean to sound combatative or belligerent. And if I do, I apologize. This is a topic many people take passionately, and I don't intend to debase or degrade ANY of the great people I've met on this post, or criticize any of the choices they make in service of the Jolly Roger.