It was an X-tremely windy day when 61 Windrider pirates and parrots descended upon Dawlish on the 31st January 2015. These were not your usual crime-seeking and man-blasting pirates, although Dan Powell did admit (trying to pass it off as a joke) that he had just escaped jail. The windriders happened to be jolly and looking to plunder the treasure that is alcohol with a load of banter/shanter rather than actual gold.
At the rum bar we sang drunken pirate songs and it wasn’t until the Landsdowne, where the barmen spoke to our true pirate hearts by giving us free treasure briefcases filled with cocktail, that we demonstrated our fighting skills, far away from the possibility of any civilian harm.
On top of the wooden picnic tables of the upperdeck Yav won a final sword fight against Dan Barlow and pirate selfies were taken with disposable cameras and a technology rarely found amongst pirates, iphones.
Following the widely known pirate motto that alive men tell lots of funky tales, we dispersed through the village of Dawlish and made our way around all intended pubs but one, whilst showing off our water skills by acing the game of pool, and changing the very stereotype of pirates as we pickpocketed or were nasty to absolutely zero locals.
After having invaded the train and had some more pistol and banter fights in the carriage, we took over the front part of the Lemmy dancefloor. There we proved that pirates are indeed the world’s most lunatic dancers. There was worming (from Sam Chapman), lunging (Connie) and even modern day stylish House dance moves (Crumpton). Yo Ho Ho, even though some pirates had lost their parrots along the way, the dance moves pumped in unreal ways until the lights came on. Pirate love had also blossomed in the shipwrecked Lemmy (no names will be mentioned) which we may be able to thank our match-maker sec Rory Cole for (who had to battle for his position earlier on in the night).
The pirates accepted that the day had come to an end, and although my legs were hurting I would’ve happily used a savy time machine to do the whole day again if such machines existed. So long Dawlish, we’ll see you next year!
