Arrrggghhh ... its Pirates Week

The much anticipated Pirates Week festivities were finally held after being delayed by Hurricane Paloma. They had originally held the events during October but specifically moved them to November a few years back to avoid any potential conflicts due to weather -ahh, the best laid plans.

At any rate - they celebrated each of the districts on the island during different weekdays and then on Saturday in Georgetown, they had cardboard boat races, a parade, lots of live entertainment, costume contests, a reinactment of a pirates trial, and lots of different food vendors set up. Oh ... and they had quite of a bit of beer.

I went down in the afternoon and watched some of the activities. It was hard to get there as the police had closed down most of the streets around town and with my limited knowledge of where different roads lead, I ended up driving around more than necessary to find a good parking spot. I had a Jerk Chicken sandwich from one of the vendors and tried my first CayBrew - the only locally brewed beer from the Island. Both were very good - although about any cold beverage would've tasted good after eating a spicy sandwich in very hot weather.

The scene sort of reminded me of the Renaissance Festival in terms of the ambiance around the event and the number of people dressed in costume - only in this case Pirates for the men - and wenches for the girls (just like the Renaissance Festival - I guess wenches are a multi-dimensional women's group) Very relaxed and fun and entertaining. Also a bit lonely when you're wandering around by yourself I found. The kids were fun to watch - lots of swordplay and pirate spirit in them.

I went home for a break in the late afternoon but went back later that night. They put on a very corny and actually irritating pirates on trial production with a lot of references to American political characters. Not my favorite. I did enjoy the music and fireworks show was very impressive. The whole festival is visually very stunning as the Georgetown harbour is curved so you can get a more panoramic view of the three or four blocks of activities. The music was very good too - they had several local bands playing - some rock, some pop, and some more caribbean. My favorite was a percussion group whose shirts read Steel Pan Music. They basically have dented steel pans that when hit in various spots make very different tones. Probably about 15 or so players and the sound was very cool.

I was very happy to meet up with a few fellow Dart employees that I knew - really my first experience outside of the office in seeing someone I knew. I didn't hang out with them much, but I was grateful to have someone to talk to during the night. I did make one big mistake - having some Sweet & Sour Chicken from a vendor. Not a good choice. I needed several cold beverages to get over that !!

So that's it - next year I'll try and put together an outfit and an alter ego with an eyepatch and join the invasion.