Gaarrr, tharr be Pirates!

November marks the most important event in the annual calendar in Cayman. No, it's not the Tennis Legends, which we told you about in our last post. Nor is it Remembrance Sunday, or Thanksgiving (although both are pretty important). It's not even Bonnie and Barny's birthdays, which both fall in November. No, November is important because it marks the annual Pirate's Week festival, and "pirates" from all over the world descend on the island for a week of plank walking, timber shivering, grog glugging, wench worrying fun and games. Or, in plain English, a great big party.

As a precursor to the main events of Pirates Week, a 5k run had been organised through the centre of George Town, and as part of his marathon training Barny had decided to enter. He finished 53rd out of a field of around 200, which he was not particularly happy with, but is not too bad considering it was his first race for many years. 

The festival formally opened on Friday 9 November with a huge fireworks display over George Town harbour, and we joined some friends for dinner at Casanova's on the waters edge towards the North end of George Town to enjoy some pasta while we watched the display. Unfortunately it seemed that half the island had had the same idea, so the waiters were struggling to cope keeping up with the orders, but the impressive fireworks display made up for the rather shoddy service.


















The afternoon of Saturday 10th November was the main event of the festival - the invasion of the pirates. During the invasion a band of maurauding "pirates" (in reality a motley assortment of lawyers, accountants and dive instructors) attempt to invade the island, and are repulsed by a band of "redcoats" (also a motley assortment of lawyers, accountants and dive instructors), and a pitched "battle" (lots of running around, waving swords and shouting "Gaarrr" at the top of your voice) is pitched in the streets of George Town.
















As a build up there was some entertainment for the crowds in the form of a demonstration by Caymanjetpack.com of their new toy - a water powered jet pack. For all those boys who have grown up watching Bond films and dreaming of the day they could have their own Thunderball jet pack, the time has now come.
 

The device works by pumping sea water through a 10m hose to a back pack with adjustable nozzles, shooting the water out at high pressure and thereby lifting the wearer off the ground. The nearest equivalent is probably riding a high pressure fire hose, but either way it looks pretty cool. It has certainly moved up the christmas wish list for Santa this year...!
Anyway, back to the pirates. The maurading mob far outnumbered the redcoats, who were quickly overpowered and this year the governor was successfully stolen, following which the way was paved for a "victory" parade of floats sponsored by various Caymanian businesses and promoting various aspects of Cayman. Our favourite was the East End float celebrating the survival of a local sailor from a ship wreck, complete with a moving papier mache shark...

The Piratical festivities continued throughout the week, but unfortunately some of us out here have to work, so we weren't able to take full advantage of the fun. However, the following Saturday saw further Pirate antics, and also running. This time it was a 10k race, with the promise that you would be running to Hell and back. Literally.

For those of you who are not versed in the geography of the Cayman Islands, Hell is a settlement in the West Bay area, where you can see a fantastical limestone moonscape. And it has its own resident devil (and a post box so you can send a card from Hell to your loved ones...). Once again Barn had decided to sign up for the run (as preparation for his half marathon), and so found himself standing on a portion of West Bay road at 6.30am being told to "Go to Hell" - along with 300 others.

The festivities were rounded off with a ritual sentencing of the Pirates, another parade and yet more fireworks. If we paid tax here, we may have been saddened to see our tax dollars going up in smoke, but then it was such a good show maybe we should be happy the government choose to spend some of their money putting on such a fantastic show!