[truth serum]

Just read your Curacao article and all I can say is fantastic! When are you going back? Maybe we could go together. Just tried to leave comments on your article and it wouldn’t allow me to. Don’t know why? I just got back from a sailing trip myself down the inner-coastal waterway from Norfolk down to Oriental. I will be sharing my experiences as soon as I can get the pictures downloaded. If you can handle navigating around barges and floating logs, this is a pretty neat experience. All I can say is that I’m glad it wasn’t my boat.

[truth serum]

That is such a great idea. I have thought since I started playing that you should get through other faction flags when you ccapture them. I also don’t think they would be a common item for sale. If you do that they should be rare or more common in the markets of their own nationality. Getting them at shipyards would make more sense to me.

On the caul all I can say is bizzarre. Creepy kind of. I always learn something when I come on this site Mk.

Thanks

[truth serum]

BUG Report Follows:

1. Who: Captain Peter Jennings (Pirate nation)
2. What: game crash during boarding of English Second Rater. My ship: English 58 gun 3rd rater. Fleet: 3 additional 58 gun 3rd raters and 1 38 gun Fourth rater. My level: 29. Enemy squadron ships: 2 96 gun 1st raters, 1 second rater and 1 6th rater.
3. Where: South of Bridgetown.
4. When: 16 April 1668 1920 hrs
5. Why: unknown

Addl info: reloaded numerous times. Every time I try to board the 2nd rater the game crashes during the transition screen.

[truth serum]

I have owned 4 boats in the last 30 years. I should start at the beginning but I’m not. As I began thinking about how I am going to talk about my sailing experiences I realized that pictures would be the best way of making it interesting. I began going through pictures and scrapbooks and I became painfully aware that I have not finished the grieving process from losing my spouse last year. I found myself in tears as I looked through the pictures of my family from years past and the fact that those times are irretrievable – I can never go back. Perhaps someday I can look back on these pictures with more happiness than grief, and perhaps just going through the process of posting my adventures here I can in some way therapeutically work through my emotions in the process – something that I have never been good at or shared with anyone but my closest friends and family. So rather than begin at the end or the beginning, I will start with the middle. The reason being that the pictures of my Bahama adventure in 2004 was without family. Only a couple of friends went with me, as my family were all too busy with other things.

My good friend Dave and his buddy Jens (who I became good friends with during this trip) accompanied me. We ventured out of Norfolk Virginia from the Monroe marina in late April 2004. The weather was perfect and my 1988 Pearson 33 seemed to fly. The standing rigging hummed and vibrated in the wind and it seemed like we were going 70 mph instead of just 12 knots. I have never owned a new boat in my life. I think its a waste of money frankly when there are so many good old boats that have been meticulously cared for by loving owners their whole lives and can be procured for a fraction of the cost of a new boat.

We originally were planning to go to Bermuda but between Dave persuading me otherwise and the prevailing wind we decided on the Bahamas. In hindsight this was a mistake in that this is a long haul with nothing to see. However, I had just performed some upgrades and was eager to see how the boat handled. After the first day though I knew everything was righteous and we settled into a routine of watches, games of chess, a beer or two and some good conversation. The company and the boat always makes the trip and if I had to do this trip now I would fly into West Palm Beach Florida and rent a boat.

So my Pearson was no Bristol or Island Packet, but it didn’t matter because in my mind after getting to know her, she was the finest boat on the planet and I have still never owned a boat before or after that I loved more than that one.

After three days we entered the outer cays of Little Abaco Island. It’s very obvious why pirates preferred this area because if you look at any chart you will see the thousands of shallows, shoals, coral reefs, sand bars, and tiny island strips. I am certain that there is treasure buried somewhere on those bits of rocky, sandy, scrubby shreds of land. I had the chart plotter on and was very nervous much of the time as I carefully watched our path ahead. The water was often very clear and the colors wonderful. There are times MK when I believe you must have been there, because the colors of the water in the game sometimes put me right back there in my mind. Your water is dramatically different than what I experienced in GOF2.

We only had two days to spend before we needed to head back to VA so we mainly explored the beaches, inlets, and cays on the southeast side and southern coast of the Grand Bahama Island – which I must add are fairly crowded with both boats and people even in April. Gold Rock Beach was quite beautiful and the water an unearthly silver-green color. The short hike we took from there into Lucayan National Park was well worth the time. On the second night we put into the marina at Smith’s Point and had a few drinks in Freeport.

I would like to go back again, but would probably go another time of year. The trip went off without a hitch and there was not a single problem (which is pretty rare actually when sailing). These pictures are not that good and scanned into my computer and manipulated into JPEGS using Paint. They don’t do the place justice but perhaps they will give you a little taste. The best I could dig up at the moment, but I will unearth more much better ones in the future.

MK I don’t see how to upload the images here. The img function wants a link. Do I need to upload them somewhere else to get them to post here?

• This reply was modified 8 years, 11 months ago by modernknight1.

[truth serum]

Sorry I was a no show yesterday, dealing with some financial issues.

Honestly MK, after reading everything I have concerning those pukes I believe you are way too good for them anyway. They have no idea what an asset they turned their backs on. Also, their actions seem to have created serious competition against their own interests and alienated a whole lot of people in the process. They probably don’t realize this but I think other more intelligent people see it. They seem to have knocked the wind out of your sails some, so the speak, but you seem to have recovered well. I hope that you will continue your historical fiction because I have quite enjoyed the Hawkins piece and the Heyn piece as well. Just wanted you to know that someone is reading them as it seems you don’t think anyone is – and stopped writing? Don’t know if you’ve stopped or not, but I think more people are probably reading than you think. Especially if they’re here.

Thanks for creating the new topic, heading over there now. I have never sailed a Hake before but I hear they are fine boats. I have been dealing with a little larger vessels for a while – more about which – in the forum topic area you provided.

[truth serum]

MK, Your recommendation worked. Went into the cabin as you suggested and waited till 0005hrs and returned to the fight. No crash. You obviously know this game well. Who woulda thunk that was the issue?
Thank you Sir.

[truth serum]

BUG Report Follows:

1. Who: Captain Peter Jennings
2. What: game crash during treasure quest against French convoy. My ship: English 38 gun 4th rater. Companion: Pierre le Picard in a Pequena Caravella. My level: 27. Enemy convoy ships: 2 barques, 1 petite barque, 1 pinaza, 1 20 gun Dutch fregatte, 1 French ordere seconde.
3. Where: Turks
4. When: 24 October 1667 2350 hrs
5. Why: unknown

Addl info: reloaded numerous times. Battle goes for about 5 minutes then crashes before I can board.

[truth serum]

I already read most of your previous explanations on that in several threads before I spoke up. I also already read the paint discussion in the ship modeling thread. Very entertaining reading I must say. I find it surprising and amusing that they reacted as they did to the Hitler comment. I think they should go have a look at a few political internet forums. If that comment bothered them so badly, they would have heart attacks reading the things said in those heated discussions. They remind me of kindergartners putting their fingers in their ears when they hear a mildly bad word. It’s just darn funny. Its clear none of them have military backgrounds or any real skin to speak of.

My main problem was not just with your “silent is consent” comment, but also that they avoided discussing the eras mod whatsoever when answering questions about available Age Of Pirates 2 mod options and if the game was still being worked on. In my mind leaving your mod out of the equation and simply saying that the game is no longer being worked on is just a bold faced lie and misleading to searching game players. So I understand and concur with your comments regarding their integrity. This is disheartening when your efforts are clearly the best most current product available for the Age OF Pirates 2 game.

Sorry I stirred things up a little over there but I’m sure you remember the old adage, when the air is stale and stinky, open some windows to let a little fresh air in on the problem. Looks as if they prefer their own stink. As you said – “closed minds”. I didn’t expect them to be so child-like about this thing. I will of course honor and comply with your request Sir. I will not comment further on that site. I feel quite at home here thank you very much.

Also I have a recommendation. Would you mind if I made a thread on real world sailing here? I would like to share some of my own boat pictures and location pictures on the site and maybe add a narrative or two of previous journeys. I think by doing this I might attract a few of my mates here in the process. BTW what kind of boat is that in your profile picture? Looks like a Hake.

[truth serum]

Hello everyone and hello MK. I am truth serum. You can also call me John if you like. Like MK I am also a retired senior level military officer. I have been a sailor all my life. The last few years have been difficult for me because of a string of personal and health problems. I lost my wife of 31 years last year. My kids are grown and gone and with my health problems I can no longer lead the active lifestyle I have been accustomed to. So I began playing video games. My kids had left behind a playstation and N64 and I began to play old west type games and a funny flying game called Pilotwings. I went ahead and bought a nice computer and started playing stuff my boys had left behind. That’s when I discovered Age of Pirates 2. I have been an addict ever since. I was overjoyed when I found modifications for this game and when I found Eras I was dumbfounded at the beauty and immersion in this game. I can forget I am alive and my present circumstances when I enter Eras.

I have to tell you that I may have done something that will tick you off MK. I made a couple postings over at the Pirates Ahoy site telling people about this mod and defending you. I did this as a reaction to your recent post about people being spineless that don’t speak up. I recently gave a lot of money to wikepedia during their fund raiser campaign. So I also though to myself, as much enjoyment as I have taken from Eras, I shouldn’t be silent. I should speak up and participate. So this is why I made that post and here I am to test anything you like. I know nothing about what makes any of this work, so half of what you guys talk about is Greek to me. However, I do know history and I do know a lot about pirates and a ton about handling boats and sailing in modern times. So that’s about it. Here I am.

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