Introduction to Lower Maticumbe Key

So, did you stop at Robbie's? Were the tarpon biting today? Well, hopefully, everyone's fingers are still intact. Right now, we're about to leave Lower Maticumbe Key behind us. And after that comes the Middle Keys.

We have about five minutes before our next stop, so let's talk about some of my favorite Florida Keys characters. Pirates. If you remember from earlier, I said the pirates in many of those popular movies and TV shows bear little resemblance to actual real-life pirates.

The Accent Origins

Even the accent. For example, if I asked you to talk like a pirate, you'd probably sound something like this, eh? We pirates are gentlemen of fortune we are, lured to sail by the love of treasure and the love of the sea. Well, what if I told you that accent didn't come from pirates, but from a pirate movie? You see, back in 1950, an actor named Robert Newton starred in Disney's first-ever feature-length live-action movie, Treasure Island.

Robert was from Dorset, in the west of England, and he used his natural West Country accent in the role of Long John Silver. And well, the accent just kind of stuck. Something else that movies often get wrong is the size of pirate ships.

Misconceptions about Pirate Ships

You see, pirates needed to be quick in order to chase down other ships and to evade the Navy. A lot of films show pirates in great big galleon-type ships with stacked rows of cannons. But those ships, while powerful, were actually pretty slow.

So most pirates preferred schooners, which were faster, more agile, and three or four times smaller than galleons. But these smaller ships came with a pretty big downside. You see, most pirates weren't actually bloodthirsty psychopaths.

Now, violence was certainly a strategy, but if it could be avoided, then all the better. So they'd often rely on the size of their crews to intimidate others into surrendering without a fight. That means they'd cram a hundred or more people onto a ship that was only designed to carry half that many.

Now, when you factor in space for food, supplies, weapons, and a cargo hold for stolen treasure, that means personal space was pretty much non-existent. I bet the smell of all those unwashed pirates was probably enough to convince some people to surrender too. Yar, what do you mean, unwashed? I just had a bath last month.

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We hope that we’ve given you all the information you need to make the most of your day. Your vacation is extremely important to us so if you have any questions feel free to reach out at aloha@shakaguide.com.