Voyaging the 7 Seas (Pirate Party)

Friends, grog, people dressed as pirates… that’s right, I went on an Urban Pirates grog cruise on Friday night. My friend Linda from work at the Science Center convinced me to book one. At first, it was a bit of a fiasco. I got everyone to agree to go, but then all the slots filled up over night for Saturday and hardly anyone could go Friday. So I contemplated canceling the whole thing and just replacing it with a normal goodbye party.

The thing on Saturday did eventually morph into my good bye part – a night of beers at Alewife – but Linda still convinced me to book seven slots on the Friday night cruise. I was somewhat hesitant. Festivities, pirate dances, singing? I’m not really the best singer and I had images of being forced to perform in my head. I convinced Matt, Andrew, and his girlfriend to go with me, though, and I almost got Rebekah to go too.

Sooner than expected, the night came along, and I found myself rushing to find a bandana and hop on the circulator. Having left my red Vash coat in the car by accident, I ran and barely caught the bus, but it turned out St. Paul street was closed and I had to walk most of the way to Fells Point anyway. It was a wonderful night, though: about 65 degrees and just a little overcast.

I got to the pier just in time and bumped into Matt, who had a whole bottle of Kraken rum and two liters of ginger beer. Brilliant! We grabbed our complementary shot glasses and hopped on the boat. Andrew, Linda, his girlfriend, and Linda’s friend Melissa showed up soon afterwards, decked out in full pirate gear, with corsets, capes, and swords. The cruise was underway (with other random boaters on board as well)!

It was awesome! The boat played classic rock music (think ACDC), the crew gave us pirate names (mine was Rocket Mouth), we got temporary tattoos, played pirate games, drank, shouted at toursits, shot out of the boat’s water canons, and enjoyed the cool night air and views of the city. At one point, there was Limbo, but because I was in the very front of the line, I went under twice and got two free shots of rum in my blue shot glass. I also got a shot for having my goodbye party. Needless to say, after those and a few dark and stormy’s I was completely trashed.

We went to some Pirate Bar afterwards and had a couple of beers, but I barely touched mine while we chatted. At least it calmed my stomach a bit. Matt drove me home afterward and I wandered to 7-11, threw up, and finally fell asleep. The next challenge – getting rid of my hangover the next morning so I could go to my party at Alewife in the evening.