Pirates roam the streets and waterways of Tampa today — offering unique family-friendly entertainment, adventure and attractions on Florida’s Gulf coast.
From the city’s NFL franchise, the Buccaneers, to its traditional Gasparilla festivities — named for the legend of colonial-era marauder Jose Gaspar — pirates loom large in Tampa lore.
“Pirate culture is a way of life here,” T. Truett Gardner, captain of Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla, which has organized the city’s annual pirate-themed festival since 1904, told Fox News Digital.
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“The swashbuckling revelry and tradition have become the signature fabric of our community,” he said.
The Gasparilla Invasion and Parade, held on the fourth Saturday of each January, is the centerpiece of the city’s marauder-themed merriment.
Think Mardi Gras with mateys.
Ye Mystic Krewe, following more than a century of tradition, “kidnaps” the mayor of Tampa and demands the keys to the city.
The “pirate invasion” begins when the gloriously flag-festooned Jose Gasparilla II, a three-masted, 137-foot-long pirate ship, sails into downtown Tampa, followed by a flotilla of hundreds of boats.
The procession by sea is followed by a massive parade of over 100 floats on land.
Organizers claim it is the third-largest one-day parade in America, behind only the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City and the Rose Bowl Parade in Pasadena, California.
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“To celebrate their capture of the City of Tampa, the Captain and his Krewe share their wealth — glittering beads, treasures, and doubloons — with a lively, enthusiastic crowd along the 4.5-mile parade route,” Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla announces on its website.
It’s preceded a week earlier each year by an alcohol-free Children’s Gasparilla that kicks off pirate season in Tampa.
The children’s festival is highlighted by a fireworks display of “pirate-technics,” as they’re cleverly called in local lingo.
“Gasparilla season” concludes each March, when Ye Mystic Krewe returns the keys to the city to the mayor before its annual Outbound Voyage — with the threat to return and make merry the following year.
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H/T Fox News (read more at FoxNews.com)
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