i recently read BLACK FLAGS, BLUE WATERS: THE HISTORY OF AMERICA’S MOST NOTORIOUS PIRATES and learned a good many things I did not know, among them that some American pirates ventured as far as the east coast of Africa and the Red Sea where they preyed upon ships carrying Muslim Haj pilgrims from India to Mecca and back.
While I grew up in the Midwest and find myself there at this moment, until recently I thought of myself as a California sailor, but I mostly sailed from California and not along the coast. Even before moving to Hilton Head I had sailed more of the east coast than the west, up and down from Florida to Maine twice and so I know the waters in which the pirates operated.
Most of the pirates preferred to avoid violence which even if they were successful was likely to result in injuries to their crew and damage to their ship. They normally took prizes by a show of superior force and intimidation.
Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, never engaged in actual combat until the attack that led to his death when an expedition sent from Virginia to track him down found him at Ocracoke Island on what is now North Carolina’s Outer Banks.
Robert Maynard, the leader of the expedition, hung Teach’s head from the bowsprit of his ship and sailed back to port on the James River with it still there. Later the head was placed on a pike beside the river as a warning.
A few of the pirates were deranged sadists. I will not trouble you with details of their atrocities. But one of the worst tortures I read of in the book and had not previously known was ‘pressing’. I quote from the book: He was placed in a shallow pit in a field, with a wooden door laid upon his chest, and then rocks were piled on the door. Slowly, the weight crushed the life out of him, but still he did not utter a word. Finally, after nearly two days of this agonizing torture, Giles Corey took his last breath.
What I find interesting is that the men who performed this atrocity were not pirates, but the good citizens of Boston on a man who refused to enter a plea in a court case.
I could have titled this entry ‘things I did not know’. Where Blackbeard died above. What a purlin is.
http://smallboatrestoration.blogspot.com/2021/08/purlins-straps-and-screws.html
And until I happened upon an article about favorite cocktails by state and country, I had never heard of a pornstar martini, much less known that according to one source it is the world’s favorite.
https://www.travelandleisure.com/travel-news/the-most-popular-cocktail-in-every-state-mapped
I occasionally enjoy sangria, though I wouldn’t consider it a cocktail, but most of these drinks are risible. If you really want to drink, drink. I take my Laphroaig neat and my martinis are gin, vermouth at a ratio of 5-1 and an olive. Pornstars are not in my future. Or my past.
Several of you sent me links to recent articles about the possible collapse of the Gulf Stream. I think I may have made reference to this in the past, but here is a more current link.
https://www.livescience.com/gulf-stream-close-to-collapse
Today you may have seen articles about the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/09/ipcc-report-un-climate-report-delivers-starkest-warning-yet.html
The problem is quite simple: There are too damn many of us.
Consider ‘Last Born’.
https://www.inthepresentsea.com/the_actual_site/lastborn.html
Unless our species demonstrates considerably more intelligence than my reading of history and experience of life leads me to expect, homo sapiens is going to be a self-solving problem.
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