WPSU

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Attacked by Pirates!

Your candy or your life!
The Great Loop is hardly the coast of Somalia.  And yet you have to be cautious of pirate attacks--especially at this time of the year, in late October.  

The brave crew of the Dragonfly has already survived one onslaught of pirates, in Canada, on the Trent-Severn Waterway.  

Last night, peacefully docked at Joe Wheeler State Park, we were attacked again.

Luckily, we had our defenses ready: A bowl of Snickers bars and some pie.  

The pirates are Morgan, Ryann, and Jaxon Parrent, three siblings who may possibly be the youngest people completing the Great Loop this year.

The Parrent Pirates are not sailing solo.  For crew they have impressed (captured) their actual parents, Craig and Danielle.  This family's story is inspiring (check out the link!).  About a year go, they walked away from a successful business and a beautiful home in a quest to spend more time with family, pursue adventures they had dreamed of, and lead a simpler life.



We first met the Parrent Family in Green Turtle Bay, Kentucky, as we started our trip south on the Tennessee River.  If you know the Cap'n you know that he's a kid at heart, the one who, at family gatherings, would much prefer to organize games of laser tag or rounds of 20 Questions with the children in attendance than to hang around listening to boring grown-up chat.

On a boat trip like this you don't meet a lot of families with children, so it was a kick to hang with Morgan, Ryan, and Jaxon.  They're being home-schooled on their boat,  Negotiator, and it's hard to imagine a better education, learning American history by sailing past landmark locations, studying biology by full immersion in lakes, rivers, and the ocean, and mastering math and physics by piloting the boat.

After they raided us, as the pirates swung over the side, they must have been spotted by other young-at-heart boaters.  

The next night, someone distributed candy to all the boats in the marina, and that night, the pirates swashbuckled their way down the docks from boat to boat, cleaning up on loot.



2 comments:

  1. I'd love to see the Parrent family link! The embedded link isn't working...

    ReplyDelete
  2. It should be working now. If it doesn't here is the URL:
    http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2009/10/family_makes_dramatic_lifestyl.html

    ReplyDelete