Pirate Fashions be vending at Jimmy Buffet's Parrothead national conversion, called Meeting of the Mind. I decided to visit the Fort Jefferson at the Dry Tortugas National Park. This small pit of an island be located 67 miles west of Key West n take a high speed ferry 2 hours to get to.  It be discovered by Ponce de Leon in 1513 and named Tortuga due to the many turtles that inhabited the key.  Dry was later added to the name to inform sailors of it's lack of drinkable water.

After the British sailed up to Washington, DC and burned it in the War of 1812, the US came up with the plan to build a number of forts to protect our nation, since it could not afford to build a large navy. The fort is the largest brick structure built in the US, which consist of 16 million bricks.  It was designed to hold 420 heavy guns including the 15 inch Rodman smoothbore cannon that weighted 25 tons each.  At its height in the 1860, 2000 people lived on this small key.  The construction of the fort began in 1846 and continued for 30 years, but was never finished.

This be an amazing place to visit, even if it never had any pirate history to it, as it was made over century after the Golden Age, but I am sure pirate probably made a quick stop fer some turtle soup, arrrgh!

In 1968 a father n' son build a pirate ship in their back yard in San Diego. This be a 1/3 replica of a 16th century Spanish galleon or 43 foot sailing ship.  In 1980 the ship be purchased by Homemade Films fer the Terry Gilliam's movie "Time Bandits".  After a stint as at our boat in Newport Beach, it was brough to Big Bear Lake in 1998.  It be a popular tourist attraction, which take a 90 minute cruise around the lake.  It be the highlight of the Big Bear Pirate Festival, which I used to vend at in my early days.   On Feb 29 , 2014 it sunk during a severe storm.  After spending two weeks underwater, they resurrected the ship n' she sails once more.

We tried to follow the pack of what Amazon n' most other commerce websites be doing, but the Free Shipping offer only lost us all arrrr profit n' didn't increase arrr sales.  Arrrrgh! before the ship sinks n' we go undertone water, we be cancelling the experiment.

We make many of the products arrr selves here in the New World, so arrrrr profit margins not be as high as most other e-commerce websites.  Most other company don't make anything, they just buy the cheapest stuff they can find from overseas.  I hope that you will continue to support Pirate Fashions. We arrrrr working on a new benefit that be coming out at the end of the year.

We be switching from getting our wool hat blanks from a distributor to directly from the USA oldest and largest hat factory.  

These hat blanks have a shorter crown and larger brim.  The wool is thicker, stiffer n' more consistent.  The edges are smooth and even, instead of ragged.  

The only draw back is we be losing arrrr larger 7 7/8 size hat.  The wool blanks is the base of arrrr custom hat.  We still sew the hat lace and edging, steam, shape, cock, n' feather the hat right here in our Tampa retail store. From this hat blank we make the 8 different custom hat style from:  Able Seamen, Landsmen, Bosum, Its Mate, Captains, Gunner as well as the Swashbuckler n Crow's Nest.

I loved the Black Sails TV series done by Starz, it just finished its fourth n’ final season. My life revolves around piracy.  I think about it, work it, n’ live it full time.  I try to visit pirate landmarks, pirate events n’ see what people make fer the pirate industry. Below be the reasons why me thinks it be the Best Pirate TV or Movie every made, arrrgh!

Time: Longer be Better, More Time to Enjoy Maties! Black Sails be the longest running pirate TV series with 38 Episodes of 49-65 minutes each, fer about 38 hours total. The 1958 Adventures of Long John Silver only be 26 episodes of 30 minutes apiece. The 1986 Return of Treasure Island only be 10 episodes of about 12 hours total time. The five Pirates of the Caribbean movies series be a mere combined total of 12 hours run time.

Realistic: Who Said Pirates Be fer Kids? Most pirate programs cast the pirate as a good guy, but history has shown time n’ time again that pirates be self servin’ criminals. Up till now, most pirate programs be made up, n’ followed pirate mythology o’er history. Pirates in media come with made up or embellished tropes, like parrots, eye patches, hooks, buried treasure, walking the plank, crew blindly following the all-powerful captain.

Points of Interests: Walking the plank be a myth made up by Robert Louis Stevenson in Treasure Island. Hollywood decided to popularize the plank o’er keelhauling (dragging someone along the bottom o’ the ship.)  I believe that Black Sails be the first program to realistically portray of keelhauling, when Woodes Rogers killed Black Beard.

Pirates wrote up a Code that stated the rules fer discipline, division of stolen goods, compensation fer injury, as well as voting fer a captain. The only time a captain is truly in charge is when the crew had voted to fight or plunder. There be a lot of politics involved n’ not all of it could be solved at the point o’ a sword. Black Sails did a grand job of illustrating many of these points.

African Slavery n’ the Maroon Rebels: Sometimes pirates treated black slaves as just cargo to be sold. Other times they could be invited on as regular crew member with a right to vote n’ earn shares o’ plunder. Black Sails showcased both scenarios, but not the third option of working them on the ship as slaves with no vote or a share. It were common that some pirate crews did use both press-ganged sailors n’ slaves; so the regular crew would do less work n’ gain more plunder. It was a dangerous practice howe’er, if ye got too many disgruntled workers they would often mutiny.

Black Sails did address the topic of maroons, who were escaped slaves from the Caribbean Islands. They banded together to create hidden communities, which threatened the British Government’s control o’er important regions in the West Indies. Jamaica itself experienced multiple Maroon uprisings in the 18^th Century. The first Maroon War began in 1731, with the ending around 10 years later with the British government recognizing their freedom n’ some territory in Jamaica as long as they would support the British against foreign invasion.

Sexuality n’ Prostitution: Most other programs show nude women as 2 dimensional show pieces, while Black Sails give their prostitutes more character n’ real plots in the story line. They also give screen time to both women n’ men nudity, as well as addressing gay, lesbian n’ bisexual roles from minor to major characters.

Business End of Piracy: The purser counted up the plunder to calculate the shares after expenses, instead of the more common dividing of plunder piece by piece on the deck. They also show the selling of plunder to a merchant at a pirate friendly port that would ship it off to sell at a pirate unfriendly port for more profit.  Without these kinds of intricate business relationships, piracy could not survive.

The Action: Black Sails showed more variety than the standard swing across on rope boarding action which end with the two captains having an empty deck to fence on fer 10 minutes. They showed surrendering without a fight scene as well as showing barricading down in the ship hull stand offs. Black Sails shows more than just cutlasses n’ pistols. They used muskets, blunderbuss, cavalry lances, hammers, daggers n’ boarding axes as well. I would just add more Boarding pikes.

Even though Black Sails gets a whole bunch of things right, they still get a number of things wrong.

Costumes be much better than the 1950 pirate movies, but they still mix clothing from 1650 with 1775 with 1815. The program is set in 1715, so almost none of it be correct. I know this happened because movie prop houses have a lot of stuff left over from doing Revolutionary and Napoleonic war films. They changed thar garb to be more distressed and dirty to fool the audience to believe that it is historically accurate. Fashion aged just as quickly in the 18^th Century as it does today. Wearing an outfit from the 1600s in 1715 would still be like wearing 1980’s clothes today in terms of fashion!

The size of the ship that pirates normally used be smaller single masted sloops which were fast. They might be 85 feet long with eight cannon and a crew of 120.  Many of the ships featured, be three masted, First or Second Rate Man o’ War ships with two or three decks of guns. They be around 200 feet long n’ be needing a crew of 750. Those types o’ ships be so slow they wouldn’t be able to capture any prizes.  Pirates went after lightly armed or unarmed merchant ships.

Conclusion: I don’t think Black Sails got the exposure that it should’ve, as I believe it to be a far better program than Game of Thrones. This be partly due to the fact that HBO network has more pull than Starz network. Overall I was impressed with the flow of the story, the character arcs of characters like John Silver going from nobody to pirate hero and Charles Vane from villain to leader of a rebellion. Black Sails is the first media program to portray pirates in a realistic n’ adult manner. I hope that it not be the last of such a portrayal. Until then, I’ll have some more rum n’ watch 4 seasons of Black Sails on my Blue Ray collection.

Ahoy Matie,

Many folks dress like a pirate, but many have not learned the fine art of talking like one, so Tiger Lee, Dead Red n Rusty Reg have created a series of two videos that be coverin' the subject in a quick n' humorous way.  Let me know what ye be thinking?

This part 1 How to Talk Like a Pirate, we covers greeting n replies, pirate verbiage, word replacement, n' colorful expressions.

In part 2 we cover coming up with a pirate name, how to sound more like a salty dog, posing like a buccaneer, curing like a rogue, giving directions, period garb, scurvy dog drinking cheers, n' grammar.

Special Gasparilla Krewe SALE, Aug 18 to 20. 

Normally we don't have sales at Pirate Fashions, but fer this weekend only, things be different. The more beads ye buy, the bigger the discount!  Ye can buy just fer yarself or yar entire krewe can combine the order (must be done all together under one payment). Speciality bead cases count as 2 cases for the discount.

5 Cases = 5% Discount
10 Cases = 7.5% Discount
25 Cases = 10% Discount
50 Cases = 12.5% Discount
100 or more Cases = 15% Discount

Get a FREE Pirate Fashion Bead Bag ($15 value) with every 5 boxes of beads purchased.  These are deluxe 100% cotton canvas bags with extra long handle you can loop over yar shoulder fer easier carrying (not the cheap poly bags that everybody else sells. Arrr customers who order beads will also earn a Spin on the Wheel of Plunder to win Freebies such Bead Bags, PF Coin Bead, Light Up Bead, Etc.  

Ye can get a Standard Case of 60 Dozen Round Throw Beads fer as low as $45.90, instead of the regular price of $54. The discount applies to all our throw n' many of our speciality beads. The accord be ye pay now n pick up yar bead order In-Store during the month of Dec. 

WI just came across an pirate magazine out of Canada. It be a 16 page magazine that be printed in a paper version fer $1.50 or a free on-line version at L'Echo Des Mers.  Issue 2 came out in Oct 2015, while Issue 22 came out in May 2017 (featuring an article on Pirate Fashions), n' they have every issue in-between fer viewing. The magazine be designed to promote the international pirate entertainment industry. The magazine has reporters in 8 countries (Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Tasmania, USA) that supply articles in either French or English or sometimes both.  

Mark Forget be the captain of this endeavor, who has spent 30 years with the Royal Canadian Air Force n' be currently posted in Ottawa. When he was deployed to Tyndal AFB near Panama City Beach, FL, he came across his first pirate festival.  He enjoyed this experience so much, he decided to start his own pirate organiazation.  He started a website called  Festival des Pirate, as well as pirate radio program called Echo Des Mers.

As I be alway interested in piracy in other counties, I asked him about pirating in Canada.  He said "During the best Canadian pirate event survey done by the Écho des mers pirate magazine show that there is around 5000 pirates enthusiasts is Québec and Ontario but  not all in garbs though and the rest of 7000 are distributed through Canada Maritime Provinces.  

Last year it was the Tallahassee Days Pirate Festival 2015 near Halifax N.S. that won the Écho des mers most popular pirate event in Canada with over 5000 visitors in 2.5 days.  But Canada has pirate events from cost to cost, there even pirate activity around the Canadian tall ship festival in all major cities like Richmond Bc. Vancouver Bc. Halifax Ns. Québec city Qc, Montréal Qc and Brockville On. There are too many to start to name all of them. But here a list of some event than Écho des mers coved."

Avast, I be assuming that if ye be a true pirate loving soul, n' one of my fine customers, ye have already seen the latest of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie. I bought my entire Krewe to watch the movie on opening night.

Overall me Krewe n' I be thinking it be a pretty good movie. It be light n' satisfying, nothing horribly accursed or truly amazing. So Arrr big question be this, "Will there be another POTC Movie?" or will this one be the last.

The pirate n' business owner in me, say's "Aye, Aye"; but the true answer will hinge on two factors. Disney and Johnny Depp.  The East India Mouse Company will do another one if they make more money than the last one. Here be the records of POTC according  to Box Office Mojo as we when the DVD came out:

This movie will push the series to over $4.5 Billion in sales, which is an extremely profitable feat. The least profitable movie of the franchise be the first one, n' it's considered the best o' the bunch.  So if a movie makes over half a billion profit, they would highly consider doing another one.

Fer the other issue, Johnny says he loves playing Captain Jack Sparrow. In the other POTC movies, Jack be an active pirate captain who moves the plot forward. In this movie he is a passive character, who has lost his crew, ship n' compass.  The other characters move the plot along n' be vital to the story. Jack Sparrow hardly uses his cutlass or pistol. The only thing he figures out quickly is to drop a sword to Barbossa to kill Captain Salazar.  

The critics tore Johnny apart with a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 31%. We will see if he wants to avoid a black spot on his reputation n' move onto something else that would progress this career. Could their be a POTC without a Captain Jack Sparrow?