Golden Pirates of the Silver Screen

Today we attended a free program at the N. C. Maritime Museum in Beaufort.  We are members of the Museum and we have attended several of these interesting lectures over the past few years called "Brown Bag Gams."  Those attending pack a "brown bag" lunch (tuna sandwiches in our case) and listen to a "gam" or informal talk.

Program Coordinator Christine Brin presented a program called “Golden Pirates of the Silver Screen.”  She described how pirates, who were actually blood-thirsty murderers and thieves, had changed into romantic figures over the last hundred years, first in literature (Treasure Island), then on stage (The Pirates of Penzance), and more recently in movies such as Captain Blood, Peter Pan, and Pirates of the Caribbean.  It proved to be an interesting talk, and afterward we walked around the lecture room and looked at the displays, several of which featured costumes from the aforesaid movies.

Christine told us that when she first began working at the museum as a young woman, she had thought, as many others did, that Blackbeard was just a story, or a myth, rather than an actual person (Edward Teach, 1680-1718).  Part of the reason for this is that he spent a lot of time promoting his own image as a pirate with smoking beard and terrifying face.  The museum has a very good Blackbeard display, including artifacts from his ship The Queen Anne's Revenge, which was discovered relatively recently (1996) in Beaufort inlet.  There is a sign, in fact, on the road to Fort Macon on which we run describing its location about a mile offshore.

This afternoon, the wind seems to be relenting just a little, and we hope to be able to complete a short run tomorrow, our last before Saturday's race.  Still, as I sit here working on this blog, I can hear the wind roaring through the hallways and railings of the condo.  It seems to be making an eery "Arrrrrrrr!" sound reminiscent of a pirate's cry.  Which, by the way, Christine told us is also a myth.