The hurricane may have cancelled the Jamboree, but it’s hard to keep a good pirate down!
They are part time pirates but those who could gave a full measure of support when Hurricane Matthew canceled the Ocracoke Pirate Jamboree. Fifteen hearty part-time pirates made the journey to Ocracoke to help put the town back together again according Connie Leinbach of the Ocracoke Observer.
“When Laura Noel heard about the flood devastation on Ocracoke and that Blackbeard’s Pirate Jamboree was canceled, she and others in the pirate community came to Ocracoke on their own to lend a hand.
Noel, who is a master gunner, is part of the Colonial Seaport Foundation, a nonprofit in Deltaville, Va., interested in preserving colonial (17th- and 18th-century) maritime heritage through historically accurate living history demonstrations.
She and several other living history crews were scheduled to participate in Blackbeard’s Pirate Jamboree Oct. 28 to 30.
But when Hurricane Matthew on Oct. 9 brought a tide surge of 4 feet seven inches, the first floor of Blackbeard’s Lodge—pirate central–received this wave of water.
Since this lodge houses the majority of the pirate reenactors for the event, and with the uncertainty as to how the rest of eastern North Carolina and eastern Virginia fared (which is the area where most of the fest-goers and pirates live) from the resulting river floods, festival organizers decided to cancel the event.
The island reeled and almost every home and business had some kind of water damage. This was evident in the days following the storm as islanders began placing water-damaged items along the roads.”
[box type=”bio”] Arrrr! Get the rest of the story in the Ocracoke Observer.[/box]