To Some It’s Crazy

Bob Bitchin

Don’t Ask Every hour or so a cannon shot would rock the harbor. This was to welcome new arrivals or just to let folks know there were cannons aboard. There was even a 13 cannon salute to Capt. Jim Ray, a recently departed skipper who had been a part of this event since the beginning. As Port Townsend is located just a few miles from the Canadian border and just across the bay from a U.S. munitions storage facility, there were quite a few Coast Guard cruisers in the area. As boats started arriving with their Jolly Rogers flying high, the Coast Guard went into action boarding the vessels for a “safety inspection.”

In the “old days” when I was younger and full of piss and vinegar, I would have taken offense at this. “Why are they hassling us?” would’ve been my fervent plea. But in the current state

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Starboard Attitude of affairs, it actually made me feel a little more secure. I remember when I was cruising in the Mediterranean a few years back, how we had actually taken our Jolly Roger down because there were a lot of people who didn’t understand the real reason we flew it. To them it was a very real threat. But there is a romance to the Jolly Roger and the swashbuckling attitude of the privateers of old. What were considered pirates to some were heroes to others. It was all in the point of view.

I have been flying the Jolly Roger for over 30 years, but I have noticed a huge resurgence in the popularity of pirates since the release of Pirates of the Caribbean. There is a whole new tribe of believers in the pirate spirit. If you don’t believe me, just try to find a place to drop anchor at Buccaneer Days in Two Harbors, or at the Pirate Fest in North Carolina. Now there are groups of people who gather dressed in original pirate garb, rent (instead of ‘boarding’) a tall ship, and go out to have fun on the high seas reenacting battles.

I don’t know what it is, but the sight of a pirate flag flapping in the wind as I am under sail just makes me feel good. I get a smile on my face when I hear a cannon salute. All you have to do to get a real understanding of this phenomena is to walk the streets of the Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut, or the decks of any of the Tall

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Bob Bitchin Ships that dot the coastline, showing people the real seafaring heritage. These were better times, when iron men in wooden ships followed the likes of Captain James Cook, Amerigo Vespucci, Vasco da Gama and Christopher Columbus, sailing the world’s seas.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I know these were not saints. Most of them, when you look into their real stories, were not anyone you’d want to party with. But when I am at sea on a long voyage, there are “those” times as I stand at the wheel of my vessel late at night when I swear I can feel what James Cook felt. As the water silently slips under my hull, with the brilliant stars above the black velvet of the sea, I wonder how it must have been when he first spotted the Marquesas, or Hawaii. I know it’s not the same, but when I think back on my first sighting of French Polynesia after a three-week sail across the Pacific, or when I first set my eyes on the Azores crossing the Atlantic, I know I felt nearly the thrill that Captain Cook or Christopher Columbus felt.

And you know what? I get a tinge of that feeling when I look up and see the Jolly Roger flying from my mast. I can’t explain it. It’s just there. It’s like an old saying we used to have in my “previous life” as a biker. For those who don’t understand there is no explaining it, and to those who do understand, no explanation is necessary.

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Starboard Attitude

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