Fort Taylor Pyrate Invasion

[William Brand]

The Fort Taylor Pyrate Invasion for 2016 is in the planning stages. Every year the parks service out of Tallahassee reviews our proposals to hold a pirate event in the fort at Key West. After ten years, you might think we'd get an automatic 'in' with the park locally and at the state level, but the management in both places changes all of the time, as do rules and policies regarding use. We've been really lucky to have both in our corner in times past, but no matter how long we've been there and how much we bring to the fort, we are still subject to review.

This is why you should always hug the people that plan any given year for us. They jump through a lot of hoops and write a lot of proposals.

This year the fort is considering some new changes and we'd talk about them here, but for one issue. Rumor control. It's simply better to wait for solid rules, answers, dates, etc than to start the year off on the many speculations that come with our proposals and theirs.

So, what can we tell you? The Friends of Fort Taylor have met together and with the fort. The early stages of questions, answers and ideas are going back and forth between the powers that be. They are pushing for all the usual highlights of camping in the fort, with some battles, historical demos and the like. I promise to post what I know when it's solid information that you can bank on and calendar.