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It were somewhere around me second childhood...er was it me third? I had gotten wind of sunken Spanish treasure in the far NE corner of the Caribbean, just on the edge of the Earth and the Puerto Rico Trench. Beyond that point, there be sea monsters! Treasure beyond yer wildest imagination, just waiting to be scooped up out of the tumultuous water on the North Shore of a weather beaten cay in the Horseshoe Reef.
What a time of it the loyal crew had! And by the devil's twisted tail, we found arrr treasure we did. Then things got sort er funny with immigration and me visa was being cut short fer some reason. I had to set sail expeditiously but before I left, I learned to play a mean game of dominoes, and had developed a "pirate" character.
I next dropped anchor on a cay just offshore of Fort Myers, Florida. Fort Myers Beach, in the winter of 2007. With a new set of juggling cutlasses and me pirate alter ego I was plunderin' the tourists famously! Hurricanes have changed the shoreline there, so that booty is gone ferever. Now I were thinkin' "this pirate character is smart as paint" I were thinkin' "and I should take it back to the sea."So I put out the word to every pirate themed resort, cruise, and festival in the Caribbean.
I booked a show in the father of all pirate events, the Cayman Islands National Pirate's Week Festival, and took the islands by storm, and sure, and it were there that it struck me that this idea would float in Northern Michigan. er anywhere that people liked to have fun!
So's I returns t' Michigan and I begins to pitch it to towns and resorts. Petoskey, Traverse City, Charrrlevoix, where I called it the Rayder fest, and a ferry company in the Straits where I called it the Great Lakes Pirate Festival. I wrote up the idea as the Lake Charlevoix Pirate Festival and registered it with the Writer's Guild. The whole time I were bouncing the idea off my good friend Scott MacKenzie. I finally asked him if he would be the captain of this ship. He said "Yes, only if we do it in Boyne City!" Scott is President of PirateFest and I am VP and entertainment director. Come see us in Treasure Town!
That there is the story behind Piratefest, th' long 'n the short of it!
Tommy Tropic
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