It has come to this  In our search for enjoyable employment we can do while living on a boat, we can now add this to our resumes:  Pirates.  Now, when non-sailing people ask us if we have encountered pirates own our sailing travels, we can say “yes, and we joined them!”

On my way to pirate audition

My audition went well and I was deemed worthy to join the Black Raven crew, at least on a trial basis for now.  The audition was quite the nerve wracking experience for me.  I have a lot of background performing but somehow I managed to get the gigs I got without having to audition for them.  The scariest part for me was having to sing.  That is one of the main qualities they were looking for:  the ability to get up and sing confidently.  That is not one of my strong points, actually.  I have never sang a solo in my life!  Let alone in front of a crew of 8 pirates dressed in full costume including swords — what an intimidating audience!!  I chose to sing a variation on a traditional sea shanty called “Sugar in the Hold”.  Cap’t K and my dear friends Erin and Josh (who just came to visit us for a few days) helped me to rewrite the words to fit the particular situation of the Black Raven in St. Augustine.  We changed the words to make fun of tourists, comment on the current in the harbor and the captain, etc.  It was a bit edgy….non-traditional to say the least.  I was pushing the envelope a bit.  I think they were a bit shocked but impressed.

Here’s one of the verses we wrote…the one the manager of the pirate ship liked the best:

The Captain stands on the quarterdeck

Can he dock the boat without a wreck?

The wind is a howlin’ out of the east

and the current’s flowin’ like a beast

And of course, the chorus, which once sung a few times, remains stuck in your head for at least 3 days:

Hey Ho! Below, Below!  Put the tourists in the hold below, below!  Hey Ho! Below, Below! Put the tourists in the hold below!

So even though I was terrified I would forget all the words to the song at the moment they asked me to sing,  I survived the audition with flying colors, my pirate costume was admired by all, and I left feeling mighty fine about the whole situation.   I start training in this weekend, and will be picking up a few shifts here and there to start out.  Cap’t K will also be working occasional shifts as Blackbeard’s personal driver soon.

We just had a great few days with our dear friends Erin and Josh and their daughter Sasha, who just stayed with us for two days.

Sasha loved being in the dinghy

They were excellent boat guests, especially Sasha, age 5, who took to being on a boat like a fish to water and was thrilled to pieces about every aspect of being on a boat.  She did “happy laps” around the boat the whole time she was here, except for when she was passed out at night, sleeping blissfully in the little quarterberth bed we set up for her.  They were also great sports about being forced to sing (or listen to) the “Sugar in the Hold” song non-stop for the entire day before my audition!

In other exciting news, we once again have a functioning water pump.  For the last few weeks, our water pump has been psychotic — when you would turn on the water, the pump would run like crazy but no water would come out, until suddenly, it would fly out the faucet forcefully, getting you and everything around you wet.  When you would turn the faucet off, the pump would keep on running until you turned the master electrical switch off.  It was really annoying, and also mysterious.  We just couldn’t quite figure out what the problem was or what to do about it.  It was obviously something to do with air bubbles in the line and regulation of the water pressure….Anyway, the other night it stopped working altogether and Cap’t K dove into the starboard cockpit locker to check it out.  I don’t know what he did, but he emerged an hour later with it working again, and now we are blissfully happy every time we turn on the water and the pump does what it is supposed to in a normal fashion.  Amazing how these little things most of us take for granted become such fantastic luxuries when you are on a boat!