”You see, crazy people don’t know they’re crazy. But I know I’m crazy therefore I’m not crazy, isn’t that crazy? “
Captain jack sparrow
This is SeaSea, taking a moment to relax at the picturesque Cane Garden Bay, Tortola, following a leisurely sail from Anagada. The beauty of this bay is truly captivating.
While researching Cane Garden Bay, I learned that a parcel of land was purchased here by buccaneer Richard Callwood in the late 1800s for his son Richaard Jr. On the land was a distillery, a significant establishment in the history of the bay. More on that later. But first, what exactly is a buccaneer? A pirate sorta kind of, maybe? I’ve used the term without, I admit, knowing its precise definition. Webster’s Dictionary says the name was first applied to French game hunters of Western Hispaniola who would occasionally engage in minor nautical misbehavior. The appellation derives from the French Boucan, a grill/ frame used to dry and smoke meat over fire by the original Buccaneers.
The lifestyle attracted a mix of unsavory scoundrels from around the world. In 1630, they migrated to Tortola. Spain controlled Hispanola and Tortola at the time and would have preferred the riff-raff to migrate from Spanish lands altogether. Spain tried exterminating the game animals from the islands to starve off the Buccaneers. The plan was not particularly successful from the Spanish point of view because it annoyed the buccaneers, who, now without a reliable food source, became increasingly dependent on the looting of Spanish ships. These days, the term buccaneer applies to pirates of the Caribbean and Pacific Central American coasts who targeted Spanish vessels in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds.
At about the same time, Rum production was in its heyday. There were 106 distilleries in the BVI, 26 in Tortola. Of them, only the Callwood Rum Distillery still produces rum today. This distillery, established on the land purchased by Richard Callwood, is a testament to the region’s rich history of rum production. It’s open for tours and presumably rum sales on Monday through Saturday. Sundays, too, when a cruise ship is in port. We must have been there on a Sunday as it was closed. Generally, we avoid cruise ship days at any location considered a tourist destination. Those are the days to be sailing, grilling meat on a modern day version of the Boucan, and eating on board. So be a Buccaneer prepare some meat over a fire, but go easy on the nautical mischief please.
Pirate music of course :
Look hard enough and you never know what you will find. Before today, I’ve never heard the word boucan.
Sailing Sea Sea 