Well, hello there stranger...never seen you in my bar before. Welcome to Tortuga! Ye be in the Tavern, one of the finest bars in all of the seven seas.
Yes, I have a rather nice little bar here, now, and I try hard to keep it that way when I'm here. I put a lot of work into this old place.
I do suppose that introductions are in order. My name is Anne Alvida O'Hure,...pirate lady named for two of the greatest female pirate captains of yesteryear, better known far and wide as Lady Stingray. Well, at least, that's what most people call me these days, save for my parents and sister, that is, for they just call me Anne. My pirates call me Captain Stingray, Lady Stingray, Stingray,.'Raye, or whatever they can yell out in a pinch.
Ahhhh, I see that look ye be giving me, friend! I really AM the one they call Stingray. I might not look like much, but it's very much the truth.
Oh, but ye must forgive me, I am getting ahead of myself. Let me tell you WHY they call me Stingray, and why I am the Captain of a bunch of pirates.
This is my story...my past, how I got to be where I am today, and my current adventures.
Tortuga Life
I was a young Mom, inland of the island of Tortuga, farther in from sea than the infamous pirate port and the rum bars that everyone knows. I lived beside my parents, Michael and Jan O'Hure and my much younger sister, Shay, with my son, Matthew Jack, in a small house back in the valley near a freshwater creek that run from the mountain that jutted up from the middle of the island. There were lots of us more civilized citizens, and we tryed to maintain the life of the island and work as we could to help the island survive, running the bars, working on and building ships, unloading cargo, and catering to the pirates that run in and out of town every few days or so. My home being next to my parents' made it easier for us to help each other and work together, growing fruit trees and keeping a garden together on our lands. My parents had more land than I did, and their home was bigger, but all I needed was room for Matt and myself. We were living well for the most part, as most of our families came from other countries, and were the very ones that established the islands, and our generations just stayed there to escape their previous lives. After all, most of the pirates were refugees just like us, and were decent people, just wound up on the wrong side of a deal or in trouble sometime in their life, and were just doing what they had to do to survive. That was pretty much my story. I had fell for a guy I THOUGHT came from an aristocratic family at the early age of 16, and wound up having a son by him at the tender age of 17, only for him to abandon us and leave the island after I learned that he wasn't who I thought he was. So, my son took my name, my father's name, and we lived with my parents for the first years of Matthew's life, until we built my home on the back corner of my Dad's land, just down the hill from them. Since I was already finished with my schooling, I went to work with my Dad, as an apprentice shipbuilder, helping him repair and build ships and other carpentry work, just as other generations before us had done back in Ireland where my Grandfather was from. My Dad only had two girls to carry on his work, and me being the oldest, I took on the task of following him and learning the trade from a young age, but my true passion was for art. I loved to paint, draw and sculpt, but in Tortuga among the pirates, there wasn't much appreciation for an artist. So, now at the age of 25, I still helped my father, and worked in one of the bars called 'The Tavern' in the main part of the port city while my son spent most of his time with my Mom at our home, and going to the one room school down the valley. In my spare time, I practiced learning to handle a sword and pistols, and taught Matt, now at the age of 7 and had grown to be a bigger, tougher boy than most, how to handle them as well, just as a precaution. Life was pretty good for the most part.
That was until the East India Trading Company came along.