Talk Like a Pirate Friday Adventures

Aaaaaargh...Ahoy me mateys!  Unfortunately, it appears that no one in Beaufort knew to talk like a pirate.  It was a gray, cold, intermittently drizzly day.  Not a day to plan a beach trip and a perfect day to go to the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort. I mostly went to see the artifacts from the Queen Anne's Revenge, Blackbeard's flagship that he grounded (most say on purpose) not far off the coast of North Carolina right near Beaufort. Again, we love the post busy season visiting as parking was easy...and there is never an admission fee.

I'll be honest, I'm not hung up on boats.  Ok, watching them can be pretty, and I like boat rides, but I'm not interested in learning a heckuva lot about them.  So, let's get right to the artifacts:

This is one of the two bells found.  This one has no foundry marks, like the other one, but that one was on a turntable that spun around and the light was low....so, this one it is.

Some nifty navigational instruments...

If you're looking for pirate treasure, this is about as close as you're gonna get.  The little glass vials contain gold dust.  Remember, the theory is that Blackbeard ran QAR aground himself and would have had plenty of time to strip everything of value off of the ship.

Here is one of the cannon found in the wreckage.  It has been cleaned and conserved...last time I saw it, it looked more like this:

While this isn't a picture of the exact "blob" of stuff that the cannon was originally embedded in, most of the artifacts are located in these mounds.  They have to be X-rayed first to see exactly what is in there before they can be separated and conserved.  The Blackbeard exhibit was a lot smaller last time I was here.

Here are some bits of window from the ship.  Those dark skinny things are bits of the lead came that held the panes together (similar to what you would see in stained glass windows)

Here are the bits of a pistol...of course, the wood bits are gone.

Here is a little ship model of the QAR that was in a display.  I am surprised this picture turned out so well as I couldn't use a flash and the little sucker was spinning around.

The rocks are from the ship's ballast.  In the foreground are actually parts of the wooden hull.  Only a teeny part of the hull still exists...salt water is not good for wood preservation.

There was more, I could post all day.  I'll upload the rest of them to an online album when I get home. At this point, I was getting hungry and there was still the gift shop to visit (I got a mug that had pictures of several different pirate flags in case you are wondering...).

Leaving the museum, I set off to find lunch in downtown Beaufort.  I walked up to the place named after the ship whose remains I just visited (um...remember the photo from a few days ago of the sign?  The Queen Anne's Revenge?) but there wasn't anything on the menu that looked like something yummy for lunch.  I continued my search.  I ended up back across the street from the museum at a quaint little place called The Spouter Inn. One of the specials on the sandwich board outside drew me in.  Even though it was cool and breezy, I opted to sit outside for the waterfront view:

Andddddddddddd....they had Yuengling on tap!  How cool was that?  Time for a pint with me lunch matey!

Doesn't that look yummy?  It's a crabcake and grilled portobello mushroom on a bed of salad greens.  Yeah, I know the mushroom seems invisible, but it's there.  The waitress recommended the citrus cilantro dressing and I give her kudos for that...good choice.  The crabcake was yummy and crabby...and the salad was good too.  Of course, I had to get my Yuengling in the picture...LOL.  Desert was apple crumble with a bit of vanilla ice cream.  What a lovely lunch!

The day is only half over here and I have more to get to.  Give me a few and I'll continue in a new post as blogger is choking on this one.