Robert Newton

 

Did you spend any time inside today?

It’s hard, when the sun is out and it is warm for the coast, staying inside is like being locked up in a dungeon.

But with all of the unique opportunities happening right now, you gotta plan a prison break.

The tall ships are in town.

Okay, you are an old salt and have seen ships with a mast and sails and frankly you are bored to death of the whole retro thing. Guys where I lived for most of my life a tall ship is anything over a foot long with a radio controlled motor and one of those mini-launch consoles that make what NASA uses look like a set from a bad Scifi movie.

Then too I was badly scared by my youthful experiences. I saw Walt Disney’s Treasure Island and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea before I was old enough to chase girls and let me tell you, hearing Kirk Douglas sing is a terrifying thing.

Course we all know what a pirate sounds like, all of us who saw Treasure Island, the Disney version, he sounds just like Robert Newton. Okay, so Jeffery Rush did a good job of aping the ole Robert Newton Cayman Island accent and I’ll give you that making sure pirates sound like pirates was a smart move for Pirates of the Caribbean, but no matter what you can’t change a fact, Robert Newton is the real, authentic, original pirate!

Now I didn’t know that the accent he used in Treasure Island was in fact a real accent, which people, real people use every day and never think a thing about it. I didn’t until I went to the Cayman Islands on a cruise and there, everyone talks like Robert Newton. It’s wonderful when after a long day of riding in a tour bus with possibly the most obnoxious child in the world you get to the Cayman Island Sea Turtle Rescue and Farm and Eddie Haskel starts drumming on the tank with the recovering Loggerheads, think North American Snapping Turtle on steroids, like the turtle Hulk and you’ll get the picture, and the guide snatches the little pill out of harms’ way by maybe an inch and a head the size of a Great Dane lurches over the side of the tank and snaps jaws which look like something from Godzilla about half an inch away from ole Eddie and the guide says, “Ya doan, wan to be messin’ with tem, theys Loggerheads and they’ll eat ya right up!” There was thunderous applause for the turtle by the way.

It’s later that you realize that was Robert Newton’s voice warning Eddie.

How can you not revel in that sort of romantic drivel?

Well, you won’t get a chance to if you don’t get down to the sea in ships, planes, or cars and see those tall ships before they leave. Too bad they are headed out on the 14^th. One day more and we could have added them into the World Snapshot day photos.

But don’t let the time run out and see them head back out to sea without you having so much as a single picture to paint. Get out that camera and go quickly, get some frames and get ready so that when next the Maritime Show comes ‘round you’ll have something to enter!