Blog Challenge #1: Pirates

Ahoy there, me hearties! Welcome to me pirate ship. The price of this journey be a bottle of rum.

When I agreed to take part in these blog challenges, I ne'er actually thought I'd get pirates as my random topic. Ye may have to put up with a lot of waffle that has nothin' to do with anythin', because I don't know the first thing about pirates, but I'll try.

I guess that seein' as I be totally clueless on pirates, I'll cheat and write about POTC. Am I allowed to do that? Well ok, maybe not POTC exactly. But I did find this really cool avatar on a livejournal comm somewhere and it made me laugh lots, so I'll share:



Ok, I'll play along. Erm...pirates. Seein' as the extent of what I know is basically, they have a beard, a wooden leg, an eye patch and a parrot called Polly, I'm clueless, so I went on the internetz to research and I found a ton of uber cool stuff. Some of what I learnt includes the followin':

• Pirates believe that wearing pierced earrings would improve their eyesight.
• Pirates believe that having women on board their ship was bad luck. They also believe that whistling on a ship would cause the weather to turn stormy (as in ‘to whistle up a storm’)
• Although pirates have been around since the 15th century, most pirating happened between 1690 and 1720.
• Almost all pirates stole their ships because they couldn’t buy ships in case they got caught and sent to jail. Once they had taken over a ship they had to convert it for pirate life. This usually meant making more room for sailors to live on board and strengthening the decks to hold the weight of the heavy cannons.

We also suffer lots of horrible ilnesses, bein' a pirate isn't all fun and games you know. Scurvy, dysentry, gangrene and yellow fever are all common among pirates, many of these eventually killin' those affected. Also, because of the close confinement, such disease spreads easily and quickly.

While researchin', I also decided that my favourite pirate be Blackbeard. This may or may not have somethin' to do with the fact that he be the only one I had heard of before I started my research.


He be a super famous pirate in the 16th century and has a bit of a reputation as a meanie. As perhaps the most famous pirate of all time, there have been many character adaptations in books, documentaries and movies. He doesn't sound like the kind of guy ye want to bump into on a dark night! Read more about him here: http://blackbeardthepirate.com/story.htm

Many pirates got caught eventually and met a horrible end. Those who did not die at sea were often caught once they made it back to dry land and often hung in front of huge crowds of people. Sometimes, they were even decapitated as a warning to other pirates. We be an unpopular group, the pirates.

Anyway, land ahoy! That's the end of yer journey, now get off me ship before I make ye walk the plank.