It's hard to be a pirate in the winter

I haven't been posted very often. It's hard to feel piraty when it is snowing outside and the temperature is in the single digits. You think of pirates in the Caribbean where it is always warm. Some pirates did have to put up with northern waters and storms.

The Pilgrims had the worst of some pirates. Shortly after the first Thanksgiving, the ship the Fortune arrived with new colonists and a demand for profit from the investors. They were upset that the Mayflower had been sent back empty. The fact that half the colony was busy dying at the time made no difference to them.

The Pilgrims quickly filled the Fortune with lumber which was in demand because of a timber shortage. The ship arrived in November and was filled in a few weeks so it must have been sailing back in the December-January time frame.

Unfortunately for the Pilgrims and their investors, the ship was seized by pirates off of France and the cargo stolen.

Then there was Bellamy and the Whydah. They crashed in a storm on April 26 off of Cape Cod. It would have been warmer than it is outside my window right now but it would have seemed cold to them. The waters off of Cape Cod are cool in the middle of the Summer. In mid-spring they must have been very chilly.

I know that there were lots more pirates but that's enough to make me feel better about a long, cold Winter.