Pirates Week: Landing and Parade

On Saturday afternoon, the pirates landed in George Town and captured the governor! As tradition holds, they will have rule of Grand Cayman for a full week before the governor musters up some chutzpah and banishes them (until next year).

Everyone came out to see the grand entrance.

The pirates entered on their ship, of course, firing cannons into the harbor towards this strange statue.

They're fast approaching

As they got closer, one of their cannons set the creepy statue on fire!

"Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes"

So the pirates landed and captured the governor, which from my vantage point was impossible to see, so I'm hoping that this is a truthful account. What I do know is that street sword fights soon began.

A peaceful pirate (who packs heat)

Pirate-in-training

After the landing, the parade began. Various groups, sponsors, and neighborhoods put together the colorful floats.

The little girl on this float wouldn't stop waving. What a sweet pirate princess!

I love the colors the traditional dancers wore.

Dancing with a large conch! (Pronounced "conck", FYI. More than one American, including myself, has made that pronunciation mistake in a Cayman restaurant.)

I'm only somewhat put-off that this group included lawyers, scientists, and economists (really??), but no accountants. Oh, the unsung-heroes that we are.

One of the hardware stores put together this float, including a woman in a tub, and a guy on a toilet! I'm hoping the man climbing into the tub was part of the float...

One of two steel drum floats. I liked the picture of this one better since all the musicians in front are girls.

This is the West Bay float - our new stomping grounds. The "Past, Present, and Future" theme was represented with the three roofs - thatched, shingled, and solar panels.

Another neighborhood got into the theme with modes of transportation: a boat (not pictured), a car, and a yellow school bus. We're dreaming big here.

I think this "float" was from Cayman Airways, but I just loved Sir Turtle in the back of the Jeep! If you get a credit card with Butterfield Bank, you can earn Sir Turtle Rewards Points! I'm not even sure what they might get you, but they sound just adorable to collect.

Once the floats had passed us by, all that was left were the crowds and confetti.

I made KK toss up some confetti to simulate the festive mood, and we're pretty sure that clump hit some nice lady in the face.

We should have left the confetti-throwing to the shorter parade-goers.

All in all, Pirate's Week proved to be great boisterous family fun!