No, Ladies, Not Pirates of Penzance, These Were Real Pirates

darchpiratesThe North Devon Women’s Institute branch recently hosted former sea captain Colin Darch, who was to speak on the topic of piracy. A number of women in the organization thought that the captain would speak about historical buccaneering, and so in what they perceived to be the spirit of the evening, dressed in what, these days, often passes for pirate garb: eye-patches, bandannas, plastic cutlasses, stripped shirts and that sort of thing. One woman wore a bright yellow captain’s hat featuring a skull and crossbones.

It turns out that Captain Darch was speaking of being captured and held for ransom for 47 days in 2008 by gun-totting Somali pirates. Captain Darch read excerpts from his memoir which described the terrible ordeal he and his crew of five endured as prisoners of very real pirates. The women immediately realized their mistake and apologized to the captain who apparently was good-natured about the mistake. Captain Darch’s ordeal was not quite over, however.

“They were lovely ladies. They made me judge who was the best dressed, which was a difficult choice. In the end I decided to choose the one with who had a fluffy parrot on her shoulder. Of course there weren’t any parrots near the real pirates.”

Women’s Institute members dress as pirates for meeting unaware speaker was Somali pirates hostage

A video of Captain Darch describing his capture and treatment by Somali pirates:

Captured by Pirates! 1

Additional video of the interview with Captain Darch: Captured by Pirates! 2; Captured by Pirates! 3 Thanks to Alaric Bond for passing along the news.

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