by erin thursby scopes1925@msn.com
Do pirates have more fun? Based on my experiences at Sail Jacksonville, I’m pretty sure they do. The crowd at Sail Jacksonville was an interesting mix, from Parrotheads and families to Goth-punk pirates and old sea dogs.
There were all sorts of booths set up at the fest. Amber Moon was selling amber jewelry, from deep red ambers to honey colored amber. A local writer, Margaret Hoffman, all decked out in pirate clothing, was signing her water-themed books. The first was Blackbeard: A Tale of Villainy and Murder in Colonial America and the second was Dead in the Water, a murder mystery centering on underground cave diving. Both books are available at Barnes & Noble in Mandarin as well as Borders.
Guests had their choice of pirate gear at several booths, which sold everything from pirate flags and eye patches to replica pirate booty. One pirate pouch, emblazoned with the requisite skull and crossbones, was marketed not only as a place to keep your pirate gold, but also as a handy carrier for your cell phone. (I pictured a yuppie pirate mid-raid, with a sword at someone’s throat, when his cell phone rings. “Arrrgh! Excuse me, I’ve got take this…” Fun stuff.)
But the event wasn’t all about buying things or looking at the tall ships; it was also about having unique experiences and learning something.
There was plenty to do for kids under 12, such as sandcastle-building workshops, fun with remote-control boat racing, paint-your-own fish banks and a really nifty inflatable bouncy ship being engulfed by a kraken. Unfortunately, I’m just a tad too tall to enjoy the bouncy ship. As always, there was live music at the Landing and pirates roamed the grounds playing instruments and smiling for photo ops.
I was particularly interested in the Mr. Natural booth, which had cooking demos where they showed visitors how to cook in a galley kitchen. Since everybody’s fascinated by pirate booty, they had a pirate shipwreck and treasure lecture series that focused mainly on Florida shipwrecks and found treasures. Visitors to Sail Jacksonville could also take a tour of any of the many schooners, most of which are replicas of sailing ships from the mid-1800s. The Riverkeeper also had something set up to educate the interested about how to care for the St. Johns.
The crown jewel of these experiences is, of course, a ride on Jacksonville’s biggest asset—the St. Johns River. You could spend as little as $3-5 for a ride on one of the River Taxis or you could take a leisurely 30-60 minute ride on one of the free JAXPORT sponsored trips. The best ride of all is the one I took, the 2-hour river ride on one of the schooners, during which there was a mock pirate battle between the ships, complete with cannon blasts and scurvy pirates.
I boarded the Pride of Baltimore II wondering what the experience was going to be like. The ship is sail-capable, but has motors to get them in and out of tight spots. You really haven’t lived until you’ve seen a boat over 100 feet long try to parallel park. Even though the river seems fairly wide to Jacksonville residents, for ships as large as the Baltimore, which depend on wind power, sailing in it can be a challenge, especially when the winds were as strong as they were on Sunday. The crew definitely had to bust their humps to adjust the sails and rigging as we passed pirate ships bent on our destruction. Guests on the ship were as enthralled by the on-board activities as they were by the pirate battle. Shipmates scurried about, responding to orders like “Keep the ballast from fetching!” To a landlubber like me, it was a whole new world and a whole new language.
Some of the crew seemed to relish shimmying up the masts, using only small harnesses to ensure a voyage without injury. It was something to see, since the masts are over a hundred feet tall. When they raised the Main Street Bridge in order for the ship to pass under it, most of the passengers spent their time looking upwards because it was an unusual view of the bridge and because it looked mighty close.
When a ten-year-old boy turned to his mother about an hour into the voyage and said “This is better than video games,” I had to agree. Even though we were on the water for two hours, I was almost surprised when we headed for the dock on the North Bank.
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