Ahoy and avast! The pirates are returning to Vallejo and beyond!

For the ninth time since a group of enthusiasts decided Vallejo’s Waterfront Park was the perfect venue, the Northern California Pirate Festival will turn Father’s Day weekend into a two-day festival for scalawags and sea dogs.

Once again, an eclectic blend of entertainers, musicians, singers, swashbucklers and merchants will fill the park and turn it into Solano County’s version of Tortuga and Port Royal.

It wouldn’t be a pirate festival without the clang of cutlasses and the roar of cannons.

The Nehamiah, a 57-foot wooden ketch that twice has sailed around the world, will fire from off shore on the the Brotherhood of Oceanic Mercenaries (B.O.O.M), who will light their land-based guns in answer during the ship to shore cannon battles.
Young and old may try to avoid succumbing to the siren song of the Dive Bar’s glittery-tailed live mermaids, who are returning to Vallejo from their Sacramento home base. But youngsters might get a piece of underwater treasure if they catch a mermaid’s fancy.

Mermaids again will be part of the Serpent Sirens Swords bellydance performances, which combines Middle Eastern dance with snakes and swords with pirate and maritime imagery.

For little pirates, the festival grounds are a playground with cannon battles, costume contests and treasure hunts.
Pirates Stubby Wood and Mister Mac will lead a parade from the front gate to the Treasure Island Kid’s Stage for the costume contest at 1:15 p.m. each day.

Mister Mac will lead children in sing-along shanties on the Kid’s Stage, too.

They can hone their swashbuckling skills at the School of Piracy from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. near the Kid’s Stage.

The ghoulish Pirates of Emerson will look among the youngsters for recruits for their grim ship.

Kids also can challenge the Zipline of Insanity, slide down a giant 30-foot Kraken, play such games as Cat-a-Pults vs. Pi-Rats, Crossbows and Monkey Cannons.

The Sea Dogs, whose members wield swords and musical instruments with equal dexterity, will give knot-tying demonstrations and will teach shanties, too.

Nybol’s Secret Garden will give visitors an imaginative, musical adventure among magical realm creatures, including pirates, boggarts, fairies and Lost Boys and Girls.

The ladies of the House of the Rising Sun will bring a touch of the infamous old New Orleans establishment to the festival, providing a place for games of chance, a song and other pastimes.

The Pirates of the Silver Realm, a family-based organization started last year, will set up displays of museum-quality pirate and nautical equipment, weapons, fabrics and other items.

For those who decide to give up their corrupt sea-rover lives, Governor Woodes Rogers will be distributing pardons in the British Government House.

Last year, Rogers sentenced some of the dread sea rovers to their fate, once their crimes against the crown were read.
Once again, some of the most notorious historical pirates will be prowling the grounds of the waterfront.

Historic pirates will become festival ambassadors at the front gate twice each day.

Among them will be Benjamin Hornigold, who raided other ships in his 30-gun sloop “Ranger,” toward the end of the Golden Age of Piracy, eventually became a pirate hunter. But before then, he is credited with establishing a privateers or pirates republic in New Providence and its capital, Nassau.

His second in command was Edward Teach, who later gained a dark reputation as Blackbeard.

A former privateer, Blackbeard captured and claimed a merchant vessel he renamed Queen Anne’s Revenge, outfitting it with 40 guns. He enhanced his thick beard and hair with lit fuses to frighten his enemies.

The ship ran aground in a North Carolina inlet in 1718, and was found in 1996. Excavation operations continue, and more than a quarter million artifacts have been recovered.

Just as Blackbeard had learned from Hornigold, Stede Bonnet gained his reputation through his association with Blackbeard. Called “The Gentleman Pirate” because of his wealth, he was born on Barbados to an English family. Unskilled as a sailor, he still planned a career of piracy, buying a ship and plundering vessels along the Eastern Seaboard. He met and joined Teach in Nassau, teaming with him to capture merchant ships. But a failed assault led his crew to join Blackbeard. Bonnet obtained a North Carolina pardon and authorization to be a privateer. To preserve his pardon, he assumed a new identity and changed his ship’s name as he resumed a career in piracy.

Calico Jack Rackham was nicknamed for the colorful clothing he wore and for his famous Jolly Roger, a skull with crossed swords that is reproduced in flags today.

Rackham also is famous for having two women as crew members, Anne Bonny who may have become his sweetheart after joining his crew, and Mary Read, who had come on board disguised as a man but who was discovered to be a woman.

Bonny also will be strolling the grounds, as will be another noted woman pirate, Grace O’Malley, who sometimes is called by the Irish Grainne Ni Mhaille or Granuaile.

Well educated and a clan leader, the “Sea Queen of Connacht” inherited her father’s shipping and trade business
Warlike as her father, she actively defended her vast properties, and her ships demanded tribute from those who sailed near her waters. Other legends tell of her ships plundering other vessels, her forces’ attack on Doona Castle and her conducting negotiations with Queen Elizabeth I in Latin in an effort to reduce hostilities between England and Ireland.

Henry Morgan of Wales was a privateer, buccaneer and later a Royal Navy admiral after developing his reputation in the Caribbean, raiding Spanish settlements and ships.

He and his crew made several assaults on Panama. After sacking Porto Bello in Panama, his large fleet began capturing Spanish forts in North America. Holding Spanish for ransom, he increased his crew’s loot to 100,000 pieces of eight. He also made raids South to Venezuela.

His reputation as a deadly pirate was enhanced by accounts by Alexandre Exquemelin, but Morgan discredited the book and obtained a retraction and damages. Unlike many pirates, Morgan was able to enjoy his riches, retiring to his Jamaican estates.

The Scottish Captain William Kidd was chosen leader of a pirate crew after a mutiny, and either was a pirate or privateer, battling the French. When the English governor of the Nevis colony refused to pay for their protection, Kidd and his sailors began plundering the French island Mariegalante.

Nobles paid for him to attack Thomas Tew and other pirates, and King William III gave him an English letter of marque, authorizing his raids. When his ambitious forays in both the Atlantic and Pacific were failing, it appeared Kidd turned to piracy. Betrayed and arrested in Boston, Mass., he eventually was sent to England, where he had to be hanged twice because the rope broke the first time. Lyrics of a famous song, variously called “Captain Kidd’s Farewell to the Seas” or “The Pirate’s Lament” is said to have been Kidd’s proclamations of the crimes he committed.

Pirate festival stages will be set up for multiple musical groups, such as QuarterMaster, that specializes in pub songs, shanties and original-tune harmonies; the Pirates Charles and their rocking take on buccaneer songs and, for those who like traditional maritime ballads, Skip Henderson and Starboard Watch. Captain Tequila and the Commodore’s Crew and Seadogs will have their own sets, too.

The Northern California Pirate Festival’s regular hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. June 20 and 21.

In addition, Saturday night has a party, starting at 6:30 p.m. for those 18 and older. The Buccaneer’s Bash turns the festival into a night in Tortuga. Pirate-styled rock music and performers from Burlesque from the Barbary Coast will perform, and Blackbeard’s Beverages will be serving adult drinks.

Pets will not be allowed. Piratical attire is encouraged, especially for children entering the costume contests but for adults as well. Those wearing weapons must tie them with a securing cord. No live munitions or working firearms are permitted.

Gates open at the park, 298 Mare Island Way, Vallejo, at 10 a.m. each day. Tickets are $10 per person per day, and free to children 11 and younger. Tickets to the Buccaneers Bash is $15 per person in addition to general admission. Because of its “saltier” nature, no one younger than 18 will be admitted without parents. Tickets can be purchased online from the event’s website, www.norcalpiratefestival.com, through 6 p.m. June 19 and will be sold at the Vallejo Waterfront Park starting at 9 a.m. June 20 and 21.

The park can be reached by bus and ferry that lands at a terminal adjacent to the park, Off street, lot and garage parking is available.

Those interested may call 866-921-YARR (9277).