Minister urges support for revamped Pirates Fest

| 08/11/2022 | 78 Comments
Pirate party (file photo)

(CNS): Culture Minister Bernie Bush is hoping that the community will embrace this year’s Pirates Festival, the first full-scale event since 2019. With a slate of new events as well as several traditional capers, the festival will include plenty of pirate skullduggery as well as local heritage events, competitions, dances, races, food festivals and family days.

“We’ve collaborated with a host of private entities to bring the Cayman Islands a national festival that will include new elements while retaining plenty of the old, too,” the minister said. While Bush is no stranger to the festival, having served as its director in the past, he described this year’s event as “an immense undertaking”.

“We are hoping that the community will rally round and support Pirates Fest by attending as many events as they can,” he said. “With the pandemic, we experienced communal isolation. It has been a trying two years for many of us with a lot of uncertainty and hardship along the way. This festival is one of the ways that we can embrace the new normal. We have consciously planned for more, but smaller events which nevertheless still evoke that community feel.”

Bush said 2022 has been a steep learning curve, with an incredibly tight planning window, but the team members feel as though they have already succeeded in laying the groundwork for Pirates Fest 2023. “We will start planning for the next one as soon as this one is over,” he noted.

See the full Pirates Fest 2022 Calendar.


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Category: Art & Entertainment, Community, Local News

Comments (78)

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  1. Anonymous says:

    Bernie and his team of braccanal pirates made pirates week to walk the plank. What a disaster. And no accountability of course.

    • If I had the wings says:

      The Ministry run by the Hon Bernie Bush needs to sit down and seriously look at what and how they have killed the Spirit of Pirates week seek help from the Artistic community in the Cayman Islands, for next year. Have the public involve in the ideas process.

      Review and discuapss all ideas and have a select panel review and come up with the three most fitting and have the public vote on line and by ballot at specific locations for the no 1 choice. In this way it becomes a community project . A good festival project management team must be put in place on salary to make this work in a professional effective and successful manner. It’s the only way PACT government.

  2. Anonymous says:

    I honestly was excited to see that they were spreading out the heritage days. But then when it came to it, they put almost all of them on a Friday. Why was it not Saturday or Sunday? I would have gone, but I’m not battling traffic to the eastern districts on a Friday. I don’t know that spreading it out was the best idea, but I understood that it would give each heritage day an opportunity to shine.
    The fireworks which are really for kids are on at 9pm on Saturday? Why are they not on Friday like they always have been? And given that its so dark at 6:30, why not do them at 7 or 7:30? You may be able to catch happy hour drinkers at least that way.
    I’ve always loved Pirates Week, but it has not been the same festival it was in the 90s. Bernie did a good job when he was in charge of the festival, but this time round it seems too rushed and not well thought through.

  3. Anonymous says:

    Bernie….the man who killed Pirates Week. How does one come to the decision to have a more than month long festival, is this some attempt to break a world recond or something ? Completely ridiculous! He must have been off his meds that day!

  4. Anonymous says:

    You can’t ask for support for absolutely ridiculous decisions. Pirates Week should have been shortened into one long weekend with all districts coming together rather than stretched out. The whole novelty of Pirates Week has gone as half of the time, nobody knows what is going on when. Disastrous decision.

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  5. Anonymous says:

    Pirates are not a real part of the Cayman Islands’ history. Blackbeard and other pirates lived in places like Nassau and Jamaica. Why is this a national festival in Cayman?

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    • Anonymous says:

      Actually, centuries of piracy, shipwrecking and books on the subject. See “The Maritime History of the Cayman Islands” by Roger C Smith. Until George Gault’s survey in 1773, Cayman mostly sat unmarked or poorly noted of what was the superhighway between Europe and the New World. Wrecking, salvage, and insurance scamming was an occupation until…well, for some, easy takings never ended. During the Battle of Bloody Bay between pirates and Royal Navy, the bay turned red with human blood. There’s a reason why there is a Gun Bay, an Old Man Bay, Boatswains Bay, a Rum Point, and so on. Pirates George Bradley and Thomas Anstis bore away from Bartholomew Roberts and eventually ran their ship Morning Star aground on Grand Cayman with at least 100 pirates. Some were captured/rescued, tried, and hung, the rest disappeared into the interior of the island and hid. Lots of other notations. I don’t think this should be an annual criminal celebration, given how many good people actually died, but it should be solemnly retained as part of an honest history.

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    • Anonymous says:

      because it’s fun. well, used to be.

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    • Anonymous says:

      Remember its inception was as a tourist attracting event for the slow season of ‘October’ (or whenever the original dates were). What could be more Cayman than that? 🙂 Pirates were and still are a marketable theme. The Heritage Days were an extension since tourism surveys show that heritage is marketable. Plus it was a good way to stretch the tourism stay-over and spread the business around. Local interest in the event was tied to (b) there was nothing else going on and (a) knowing a lot of people in the tourism industry (and who thus shopped in other local businesses) so everyone benefitted from a good pirates week when it first started out. Plus some good old-fashioned competition, i.e., gamefication, for the best float and heritage day prizes. How much of that success can be recaptured given changing social conditions is an open question. But Pirates Week needs to identify what it is (primary & secondary goals) before it can stop failing to be all things to all people.

  6. Anonymous says:

    Can’t we see that everything Bernie touches turn to dust.

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  7. Anonymous says:

    A bunch of super spreader events just in time for the next wave of Covid.

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  8. Anonymous says:

    Why are the street dances on Seafarers way? Has anyone got out of their glass tower in the last few weeks to notice how brutal the traffic is when even one lane is closed downtown?

    Cardinal Avenue should be the venue. Or the Agriculture Grounds, or Festival Green, or the Kaboo Lands, or….

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  9. Anonymous says:

    No thanks. Spreading this out instead of concentrating things into a week or so for the tourists was a big mistake. Now there is no pirates week for them to come to.
    No one is interested in this …don’t you get it?
    We can’t afford to eat properly or pay our bills. There is no buried treasure in the islands for the residents and the only pirates are our elected representatives stealing from their own people.

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  10. Anonymous says:

    Why are pirates called pirates? Cos they just aaarrrrrrrr!

    I’m here all week folks!

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  11. Anonymous says:

    How about we change it to Christian Heritage Week and build a bell tower at the old tower building site.

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  12. Anonymous says:

    Most of us wouldn’t go even if DOT had booked career-terminated Johnny Depp. Who is this for?

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  13. Anonymous says:

    hahahahahahahahahahahahhaha……………hahahahahahhaha….I can’t stop as this is so stupid

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  14. Anonymous says:

    Finally read Leigh Ritch’s 2020 “In Too Deep” autobiographical recollection of all the Drug Smuggling and Laundering Pirates from 1980-90s. Many related unsanctioned characters still very much active in Cayman’s Economy and Politics. Recommended reading for any stakeholders wanting their hair to bristle up with lingering reality.

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  15. Anonymous says:

    This Festival always omits the very real and unpleasant documented multi-century professional Caymanian ship-wrecking, extortion, and salvage industries that were the basis of some of the inter-generational riches of Cayman’s oldest and most influential family names. Lloyds and other European insurers had the Cayman Islands on their suspicious New World watch lists since early 1700s, centuries before banking. No floats at the parade or Heritage days about that Bernie? Let’s scrap this thing.

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  16. Anonymous says:

    Lots of negative comments here… Pirates Week is always fun for the family and adults. Looking forward to this year and appreciate all the efforts!

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    • Anonymous says:

      What has Bernie added except more days, and cost? It’s not 1995 anymore.

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    • Anonymous says:

      Maybe the landing is “fun for the family” but nothing after the sun sets is. It goes from PG to R to sometimes X real fast. Remember that video on Cardinall Street several years back?

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    • N says:

      I don’t find the comments negative at all. You’re right that Pirates “Week” is always fun! But dragging it out for 3 months is beyond ridiculous! Dumb idea!

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  17. Anonymous says:

    people will complain about everything. if you don’t like it, don’t go.
    thousands will and it is easily the busiest time of the year downtown.

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    • Anonymous says:

      Busiest groping and sexual assault period of the calendar, isn’t reason to extend the festival.

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    • Beaumont Zodecloun says:

      It used to be family friendly, and people had fun with games for the kids, and food and music and dancing.

      It has become a street humpfest which is no longer safe for childen.

      We can and should do better. We should not embrace vulgar public behaviours. The rest of the world can throw away their cultural customs and morality. We should remember and pay homage to our heritage and culture.

      I have no problem with the Pirateness. I actually think it is fun. I know a couple of the seasonal pirates. I am concerned about the peripheral debauchery which seems to hook its wagon to almost every celebration here.

      1. No dry humping in the streets
      2. Just keep it down, okay?
      3. Always remember that children can be watching
      4. Please don’t encourage your wee children to emulate adult behaviours

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    • Anonymous says:

      Except, dude, we are paying for a department of people for a full year for what is now a month of ill-conceived low turnout BS which only brings in the Seattle Sea Pirates we are paying to host. Who is this for?

  18. Anonymous says:

    Unless there is Jamaican food being sold on the streets by unlicensed vendors, I not going.

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  19. Anonymous says:

    do we really need to keep this waste of money and time. would it be good to try something else. No that would make sense. remember when it was run under tourism and there was an actually office staffed to do a one week festival, wonder how much money is wasted now. joke. dis coming from a local…who is getting tired of how our country is run. will it get better? who knows with this bunch of junior brainiacs

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  20. Anonymous says:

    Do we really want to continue this pirate heritage? I suggest a shift to Discovery Fest: A festival beginning on May 10 (hark back to 1503) celebrating Columbus’ sighting of Cayman Brac and Little Cayman. Sure, dress as pirates but get rid of the emphasis on rape and pilage. Time for a paradigm change?

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    • Anonymous says:

      Funny I’ve been to all the pirates weeks events since 1981 and you know I don’t ever remember seeing the rape and pillage float. Hmm must have missed that one.

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      • Anonymous says:

        OP has a point – very little historical association between pirates and Cayman – mainly a story for tourists. Now if we really want to celebrate our heritage we should replace the landing and pirates trial with a ceremonial wrecking in Hog Sty Bay, with the inhabitant’s of GT going aboard and removing all the cargo, which they then sell back to the captain.

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        • Anonymous says:

          Cayman was a safe haven back in the day for pirates, not just a shipwrecking paradise.

        • Anonymous says:

          Unfortunately, that’s a revisionist history. There are centuries of Captain/Governor and officer logs, official dispatches/clemency papers, insurance claims, and physical evidence documented from mid 1600s – including history of at least a dozen notorious pirate leaders (with and without permission) having association/settlement history to Cayman and the compulsory cross-Atlantic Northern Antilles ambush islands of the day. This part of Cayman’s settlement story isn’t pretty, and it is also central to lasting multi-century reputation problem Cayman earned. Those interested won’t regret picking up copies of “The Maritime History of the Cayman Islands” by the late Roger C Smith, and “Shipwrecks of the Cayman Islands” by Lawson Wood. This privateer image paired nicely and was rejuvenated with the bad boy money laundering professionals of our early banker and accountant Rotary membership, who founded the festival, and their 2 night bar revenue, with tits-out parade, funded most of their work for the year. Obviously if Financial Services are painstakingly trying to shake this image today and keep us off black and grey lists in realtime, CIG might have also considered rethinking the imagery of hosting a newly extended month-long Celebration of historic lawlessness (and boys-will-be-boys female objectification events).

    • Anonymous says:

      Yeah you’re right, lets stop pretending to be pirates and dress up as slave businessmen instead….

  21. Anonymous says:

    The new arrangements are ridiculous. I can’t even bring in family for a full Pirates Week anymore because it’s so spread out. Not a bright idea.

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  22. Anonymous says:

    Really smart having the kickoff on a long weekend when a lot of people will be away…

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  23. Anonymous says:

    The decision to expand this over several months was bad. Nobody has that much enthusiasm for it. Nobody. Even those who get dressed up as pirates would probably rather walk the plank.

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  24. Anonymous says:

    Well, QE1 was very happy to fund these pirates to plunder the Spanish and anyone else who had anything of worth.
    Nothing has changed, except the pirates wear suits today.

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  25. Anonymous says:

    Bernies single accomplishment as Minister thus far!

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  26. Anonymous says:

    Oh, Little Csyman Pirates Week was last weekend. Cross that off the list.

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  27. Anonymous says:

    Wasn’t it changed to Pirates All Year Round? MPs have been doing it for last decade..

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  28. Anonymous says:

    it actually looks good again! excited to go!

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  29. Anonymous says:

    A 100% local says. Nope.

    Tourism and culture have lost the plot!
    Cayman is gone.

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  30. watcher says:

    If it involves porking in the street, that’s a no from me, dog.

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    • Anonymous says:

      That’s Batabano you’re thinking of, this is cleaner. No porking, just hints of rape and pillage

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  31. Anonymous says:

    OMG, we have a Minister of Pirates Week, on our dime.

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  32. Anonymous says:

    Hard no.

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  33. Anonymous says:

    The only thing worse than Bernie’s charade is the Miss Universe charade. Please scuttle both and start over with something that will positively impact our Beloved isles Cayman.

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  34. Anonymous says:

    We have enough real skullduggery going on in Parliament. Why do we need to support carrying on this charade just because one of our MP Make-believe Pirates urges us to?

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  35. Anonymous says:

    This tired motif is the opposite of the image we are fighting to project in grey listed 2022-2023.

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    • Anonymous says:

      Bury this distasteful dead horse with dignity.

      Time to move on from this crappy, non- Caymanian parody.

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      • Anonymous says:

        Crappy, yes, but it is very much a Cayman Islands thing (at least metaphorically speaking). Caymanians and expats have equally enjoyed the spoils of pirating for a long time.

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