Queen Ruby of the Pirates and her Ladies in Raiding, the Cruise of the Jeweled Princess

Flag of Queen Ruby of the Pirates

© 2023 by William J. Hamilton, III

Ride the Bus, Join the Drama

This summer Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit invites you not merely to take the bus to the beach, but to use transit to access a summer island filled with adventure, drama, swordplay and romance. 

This is the first written chapter  in our pirate drama. We maintain a complete chronology with links to all the chapters and events 

When you encounter Queen Ruby of the Pirates or one of her Ladies in Raiding, you may be given a golden pirate coin which will allow you to win discounts, earn prizes or even participate in the dramatic contest between Queen Ruby, his majesty's royal militia, the fiendish Pirate Anderson or the venal operatives of the British West India company. 

Here's our story up to now. Join the next chapter on Memorial weekend when we open the ocean at 10:30 am on the front beach of the Isle of Palms and join the drama which will bring  excitement as well as better transit to the Lowcountry up to its conclusion of Labor Day Weekend.

After you have read the backstory below, read the latest chapter, the conclusion of which will unfold in Summerville on May 18. Read Crystal Goes A Roving, Pirate War in Summerville?

A Hard Life Come to a Dead End

Ruby was the beloved daughter of a famous Admiral of His Majesty’s Royal Navy. Middle age found her married to a rum ruined former ship’s captain and now tavern owner in the impoverished town of Port St. Phillip. Trapped in circumstance, peril and adventure yet awaited the handsome woman who believed her life was to be spent tending bar, scrubbing run sodden tavern floors and sloping pigs.

Peril from the Sea, Anderson's Pirates Raid Port Phillip

Peril came in the form of Anderson’s pirate band, who raided the town and carried off everything of any worth. St. Phillip was poor on a good day. The King’s taxes and the ruinous terms of trade with the monopoly of the British West India Company made life expensive and hard. With rations low and a pirate crew on the verge of munity, Anderson came to take everything Ruby and her neighbors had. The King and his fleet were, as usual, far away guarding the profits of the West India company.

Ruby’s husband was a sot, but when the door of his tavern was breached by the thirsty pirates he rose on his feet to defend his wife, whom he still loved, the only true treasure he possessed. The Captain's final battle was brave and short. He ended in a pool of his own blood on the dank, beer soaked floor. Ruby, unready, was taken prisoner as were the other ladies of the town. It took five strong men to drag Ruby to their ship.

On board Ruby and her sisters contemplated the horrors that awaited them in one form of slavery or another. They were hardship toughened women from age 12 to 80, subject to the various uses men might devise for them unless they freed themselves.

Ruby knew the uses of rum on sailors and proposed a party, a welcome surprise to  the pirates. The revels began, but the pirates quickly fell into a drunken sleep while attempting to prove to the smiling women which of them might hold the most rum.

When they awoke with headaches the following morning, they were startled to find irons on their feet, shackled to chains run around the beams of the ship. Above them they could hear the sound of feet on the deck, hear the rasp of rigging running through the blocks and the high pitched voice of Ruby, directing the trimming of the main course. What had been their ship was under way. They were now prisoners locked in irons. Ruby and the women were in command of what was now the ladies’ ship.

Ruby had heard many stories of the sea, none more legendary and improbable than the tale of the key to the sea. Said to have been forged by Vikings, the large iron key to the sea was alleged to give the Captain who held it command over wind and wave. It was said the key was the power which allowed the Vikings to find Greenland and the new world. The key could put the wind behind your sails and turn it against your opponent. It could calm the storm for your vessel’s crossing but raise the gale against a ship in pursuit.

In the hands of the righteous, the key was the most powerful magic on the sea. However, in the possession of a murderous thief and kidnapper like Anderson it had been of no use, a relic that had cost him much and had yielded him nothing.

When Ruby and the ladies battered down the door to the captain’s cabin they found the key among his many treasures. Ruby knew what it had to be. She passed over the precious gems, gold and silver in the treasure chest to grasp its handle. She told the other women; “with this we shall be powerful and free.”

A Decision is Made, A Voyage Begins

At dawn Ruby donned Andersons worn pirate costume and fitted his oversized bicorn hat to her smaller head. She directed the women to work the anchor up with the windlass, lowered the sails and let the ship fall down into the wind. As what would be known as the Jeweled Princess of the Seas began to make headway and the rudder began to cut, Sapphire, who had taken up the work of the helmslady asked Ruby if they should return to the ruins of Port Phillip.

Ruby reached into the pirate jacket’s oversized pocket and touched the key to the sea with her fingers, feeling the waves tremble beneath the ship at her touch. She looked at the women before her rapidly become an effective crew. Ruby considered what their lives back in the power of others might be. More hardship, burials sure to be forgotten and the certain return of other pirates. They could expect forced, unfair dealings with the rapacious agents of the West India Company or the occasional press gangs of the erstwhile Royall Navy taking the men. That course did not promise freedom or happiness for them or the many others who suffered.

Ruby looked at Sapphire (all the ladies had taken to naming themselves after precious gems) whose hands rested on the huge wooden wheel of the ship. Assisting her was beautiful, raven haired Crystal, a young girl with her entire life ahead.

Ruby turned her face into the wind, feeling the air. The sea breeze opening with the morning’s warming heat brought the worn plume of Ruby’s hat up and into the sun. It was a fair wind for travels North to a convenient island where Anderson and his pirates could be marooned. Beyond that could be found the wealthy parts of the Caribbean, a sea of arrogant captains, greedy company agents, slavers and more pirates than a women should have to contend with.

Not the ordinary workplace of a lady for sure, but work which needed doing.

Ruby looked at Sapphire and Crystal, and beyond them to the blue sea and islands out to the horizon.

“I think not,” famously said Queen Ruby, adjusting her hat. “Easy over three points to starboard.” She touched the key in her pocket and the ocean beneath the keel yielded to the ship, the wind backed to her desired direction and the Jeweled Princess began its first voyage.

300 Years Later in Carolina

Pirate Queen Ruby and her Ladies in Raiding have been sailing for years. Crystal is now a young women and can hold down the poop deck in a storm with the confidence of any man. However, as Ruby possesses the key, no storm every overthrows the Jeweled Princess.

For the struggling people of these colonies, Ruby’s ship and its crew are a welcome sight. They bring help when needed. The women defend against pirates and recover some of the wealth the West India Company takes from these people tossed by hurricanes and often starved by poor, island soils. 

On the hot, still days after a hurricane, when everything is in ruins, it is the Jeweled Princess that often shows up first with assistance. If the crates of crackers heaved into the lighters bear the mark of the West India company, no one seems to mind.

Except of course, for the West India company, who profits for King and investors by buying everything the islands produce at prices of it’s choosing and selling everything needed there at a premium, standing on its royal grant of monopoly. The King gets his share of all. The Royal Navy’s first job it to be sure of that.  The sugar cane grown gets sold to the company for a pittance and the run later purchased costs dear. It does not profit the West India company to see it’s run and crackers donated to the poor for free, even after a Hurricane.

During one storm, when Ruby used the key of the sea to end a mighty Hurricane. The massive energy of the storm was concentrated and there was an exposion. She and her ladies find themselves in a strange world, 400 years in their future. A world of wonders, but also troubles. They have kept their distance up to now, attempting to observe this world of marvels from a safe distance, but their casks have run dry. 

Ruby and her ladies have been forced to land at the Isle of Palms after scouting the Lowcountry to obtain that most precious treasure, water, to fill the casks of the Jeweled Princess. They will distribute some largess, get help hauling the water out to their ship and be quickly off over the waves leaving the pirates, royal navy and company agents in their wake, who have somehow also reached the future with her. 

The casks are full. The Jeweled Princess is ready to make sail, but Crystal, now the flower of young womanhood, cannot be found. Ruby must remain ashore with the other ladies in raiding to search for her sister. As the island fills with summer visitors, the Ladies in Raiding are not unnoticed. Reports have reached the King guards. The West  India Company has offered rewards: 20 pounds for a lady in raiding, 100 for Ruby and a thousand for the Key to the sea.

Crystal is rumored to be in Summerville, reveling in the opportunities this new century presents to an experienced 16th Century Pirate Maiden. Our next chapter unfolds in Summerville on May 18. Read Crystal Goes A Roving, Pirate War in Summerville?

Ride the Bus, Join the Story

The Royal Navy, as always, is far away protecting the king’s profits, but Anderson and his pirates are close. They escaped their lonely island years ago and stole a new ship. They are bearing down on Ruby, the Isle of Palms and the King’s small guard, a friend to none of them. It is the beginning of summer. While visitors revel and sport traveling from the mainland on the free bus service, Ruby and her ladies must act to save all.

On May 27, 2023, starting at 10:30 am on the Isle of Palms, take the free CARTA Beach Shuttle from the mainland and join the story.  

More Information

For more information, see our main page on the 2023 bus to the beach or contact William Hamilton at (843) 870-5299 or wjhamilton29464@gmail.com

 

Location for Mt. Pleasant Arts Center Should be Transit Oriented

 By William Hamilton

Executive Director, Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit- www.bfltransit.com
Resident- 32 Sowell St., Mt. Pleasant, SC 29464
Ph. (843) 870-5299 or wjhamilton29464@gmail.com

Presented to Mt. Pleasant Town Council on March 14, 2023. 

At the end of his remarks, William Hamilton offered to restore and donate his late wife Julia's beloved 1920 mahogany Ivers and Pond Piano to the new art center. Julia was a stalwart supporter of music East of the Cooper, founding and performing with I'Onissimo! for ten years and playing 1st violin in the Mt. Pleasant orchestra. Julia played the large parlor grand instrument for 50 years. 

The proposed East Cooper Plaza location for an Arts Center is far more useful to the community and will generate less traffic because it can be served by strong public transit connections to outer Mount Pleasant and the Old Charleston area and transit hub. A greenfield site on currently undeveloped land on the north side of town would be impossible to reach by transit in the evenings and would have far larger environmental impacts.

I am the Executive Director of Best Friends of Lowcoutry Transit and run our East Cooper Hungryneck Straphangers unit. I have been riding public transit to and from the locations mentioned in this memo since 1978. I am a resident of I’On and take the bus into Charleston several times a week. Our organization is considered one of the leading Transit advocacy groups in the Southeastern US and the Town/Transit Teamwork effort which achieved a 308% increase in transit ridership in Mt. Pleasant between 2007 and 2012 is still a subject of national study today. Mount Pleasant wrote the book on suburban transit ridership development.

On the Reliable #40 Bus Line

East Cooper Plaza is currently on the reliable Mt. Pleasant #4O CARTA Bus line with stops right in front of the Plaza on it’s West end and in front of Sesame Burger just to the north, where two restaurants provide a pleasant place to wait for the bus and perhaps contribute to local economic activity and town tax revenue by enjoying a drink or meal. These restaurants and businesses also provide rain shelter while waiting. Transit riders don’t have the concerns about DUIs that car drivers have. While you can’t ride visibly inebriated, the professional drivers of CARTA, many with million mile perfect safety records are our designated drivers. The BP station also has snacks and a lighted place to wait out of the rain near the outbound stop.

For trips inbound to Charleston, there is a CARTA bus stop with a bench in front of First Reliance Bank, pm the frontage road across from CVS.. This inbound stop is also near Wood and Grain, Second State Coffee and several other pleasant places to eat or find a snack while waiting. The bank drive through provides rain shelter at this location. While the inbound stop could be improved by a shelter and the necessary space is available, it’s a perfectly acceptable all weather stop now.

Since inbound transit rides to Charleston require crossing Johnnie Dodds Blvd. Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit would recommend improved cross walk striping. Pedestrian push buttons are already in place and functional. Access to and from all directions is already fully sidewalked. The East Cooper Plaza location is also within walkable distance of over 1500 residences.

Student and Youth Visitors

Image, Right, Children planning future transit system for the Lowcountry.

Since this facility will have many student and youth visitors, who cannot drive access to transit provides a major opportunity to reduce traffic congestion. Parents or those assisting transportation challenged adults often make four trips between their origin point and the location of activity. One to take the young person to their practice or other activity, another to return to home or work, another  to pick the child up and finally another to return child and parent home or elsewhere. For students without a parent or guardian driver, youth cultural and civic opportunities are often inaccessible. Transit access is also of great value to Senior Citizens and the Differently Abled. Everyone who reaches this center buys tickets, fills seats and gains value for us all.

While it is a bit of a walk. The Coleman Blvd. #41 bus also has stops at extreme walkable distance of this location on Coleman Blvd. and Pelzer and Houston Northcutt, near town hall.

Image, left- Bus Stop at Mount Pleasant Town Hall, which with it's partner across the street linked by a world class pedestrian crossing with center Island is without question the finest bus stop on the CARTA system. 

The East Cooper Plaza location is also the closest available place for an arts center which could draw patronage from visitors staying at the Ravenel Gateway Hotels, all of which have very short, reliable transit links between Hotels and the Plaza.  It is also an easy ride from the transit hub at the Visitor’s Center Parking Garage downtown in Old Charleston, where CARTA lines link to the entire region and planned Lowcountry Rapid Transit System. Free DASH buses there bring tourists from throughout the city to make connections. If plays and concerts at our arts center are to succeed, strong transit is needed to fill seats. It’s also critical to provide access to the elderly and disabled.

If the town wants to take on a very ambitious cultural effort, this East Cooper Plaza Location, Town Hall, the Farmer’s Market, the I’On Mount Pleasant Amphitheater and Waterfront Park could all be effectively linked by a combination of existing CARTA public transit and town provided shuttles similar to that operated for the Blessing of the Fleet. Mt. Pleasant could go big with the sort of locally grounded cultural festival the City of Charleston, which has lost most of it’s citizen performers can no longer provide. Piccolo Spoleto was once a feast of local talent. Mt. Pleasant could take over that tradition with our own talent and voices, while Old Charleston services tourists with whatever out of town talent it chooses to market.

I attended a wonderful, but quite chilly Christmas concert on the lawn of Town Hall last December. The holidays remain hard on my because my beloved wife Julia, who filled our holidays with music as the leader of the I’Onissimo! Chamber Music organization was an accomplished violinist. The silence of the three Christmases since her death always burdens my heart. Hearing the music we shared performed by a local group of musicians and singers I knew filled by eyes with tears and drained away, for a precious hour, some of the grief and loss which arises from the silence of her piano and violin when Christmas trees glow. I remain grateful for that hour. I was able to find a ride with friends when holiday weekend surge pricing for Uber would have made the trips to and from town hall cost over sixty dollars.

Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit is already preparing a major summer 2023 effort called Bus Pirates, Queen Renee and her ladies in Raiding to support and build ridership on this summer’s Beach Reach Shuttle. We would be happy to reinvigorate our historically successful teamwork effort with the town to supercharge a cultural center at East Cooper Plaza with transit enabled access. We have ten years of experience producing cultural events in the I’On Community and 20 years of experience working to build transit ridership in Mount Pleasant. We can do this cheaply and effectively. We eager to help.

We’ll see you on the Bus.

Together, We Go Forward

William Hamilton

Bus to the Beach 2023- Ruby and the Pirates

Bus to the Beach at IOP stop

Beach service will run on weekends and holidays between Memorial weekend and Labor day. Trips may be planned using Google Transit or the Transit App on your smartphone. Parking on the mainland can be found along Market Center Drive in Mt. Pleasant Town Centre. The service is scheduled to connect directly to the regular CARTA 40 bus route running from downtown Charleston. Mainland parking and the shuttle are both free. 

Official Map & Schedule

Official CARTA Map and schedule for the Bus to the Beach 2023

Load the transit app on your phone so you can track the bus. 

You can reach the Beach Reach Shuttle and Isle of Palms from other places on the CARTA system using regular CARTA bus lines. Trips are faster with fewer and shorter layovers at connections on Saturday, but the shuttle itself is scheduled for an immediate connection with the Mt. Pleasant #40 and Hungryneck N. 17 #42 at the mainland stop of Market Center Drive, on the round-a-bout between Lowes and Mt. Pleasant Town Center. Here is the trip from downtown Charleston, Mary Street Transit Center on the 40 for Saturday Morning and from CARTA Superstop in N. Charleston. Make sure to collect your transfer. 

We appreciate the CARTA board's commitment to making this service work. We also thank the City of Isle of Palms and Town of Mt. Pleasant for paying the cost of this transit service. We're happy to commit to fully supporting the effort. We're not sending them a plaque, however. We're sending Pirates. 

Thar be Bus Pirates ere

Beach Reach Shuttle Service will start on Memorial weekend. Best Friends celebrated on a rather rainy beach when Pirate Queen Ruby opened the ocean by throwing the Key to the Sea into the Waves. She also inducted "Queen Cookie" as an honorary Lady in Raiding right on the damp, grey beach. Pirates can beach in the rain. Our summer long participator pirate drama is woven into the effort to increase ridership on the Bus to the Beach, but headed to other, fantastic places as well. Read the story. Choose a side. Play your pirate part and enjoy the beach in a new way where you obsess our Pirating instead of Parking. 

June 17- IOP = Isle of Pirates- Muster of the Ladies in Raiding-

Queen Ruby has called a muster of all her ladies in Raiding for Saturday, June 17th. on the Isle of Palms.  Our pirate camp will be located on the beach in front of the VFW and Windjammer. The pirates plan to load up the 11:15 run of the bus to the beach.  New recruits are welcome.  See the Facebook Event listing. 

June- Pirate Pop Ups. 

Look for our Lady Pirates and their foes to appear around the Lowcountry in June. 

Sat. July 1- T-Day Veterans take the Beach and the Bus

Veterans from across the Lowcountry will begin the Independence Day Holiday period by helping each other and the community reach the beach at the Isle of Palms  See the Eventbrite ticket sign up for guided rides originating near where you live.  We’ll have experienced transit riders working as guides from veterans facilities in inland areas. On the Isle of Palms, veterans will be welcomed at the VFW Post 3137, the Post on the Coast, with it’s wonderful oceanfront deck and view.  To Reach the VFW Post see vfwpost3137.org

June to August- Flee the Sea Daytrips

While we love to go to the beach on the weekends, the people who live out there find themselves tied up in congestion. They beach during the week. We're planning some flee the Sea daytrips for them. The first is tentatively set for June 18 with a guided trip to Mt. Pleasant Town Center and assistance planning trips beyond that point on the CARTA system. Sign up for the June 18 Trip on Eventbright. Participants will have the opportunity to do lunch at Town Center with restaurants prepared to assist them in decompressing. They can take in a move, hit the Barnes and Noble book store or take in a moved at the Palmetto Grande. Later in the Summer we might push inland for a quiet Sunday downtown or if you really need to escape Tourism, North Charleston. 

Veterans Voyages to the Sea, Summerville to the Sea and Rivers to the Ocean North Charleston

We're working with community groups of all kinds to get new people on transit, starting with the Beach Reach Shuttle. We're meeting people across the Lowcountry who haven't been to the beach in years. Many also no longer go downtown. Queen Ruby and her Pirates plan to lead them out of the doldrums of Autocentric Alienation Ashore Syndrome back to the sunny sand and the transit accessible city with too many cars in historic Charleston. When they ask you where you parked, tell them "North Charleston."

The Legend of Queen Ruby and her Ladies in Raiding 

Pirates in the Pride Parade

Read the legend of Queen Ruby of the Pirates, her Ladies in Raiding and the voyage of the Jeweled Princess. The drama of their struggle to remain free and powerful as they contend with the King's guard and the vicious gang of Pirate Anderson will unfold across the Lowcountry this summer, challenging the disappointing narrative of current events with a story of beautiful pirates coming to the aid of the oppressed, battles upon land and sea and romance as the members of the King's guard, so far from his majesty and so close to the beautiful Pirate ladies, try to remember whose side they are supposed to be on. How have these women escaped their time four hundred years ago to cruise the waters of Carolina. Why are they here. What will become of them?

If you encounter the Queen Ruby or her ladies in raiding, they'll be handing out pirate booty. These coins may earn you discounts at local businesses, purchase entry into contests or allow you to enjoy special entertainments. Return here for a list of participating businesses. Be sure to keep your pirate coins secret from the King's soldiers who may attempt to confiscate them or have you slapped into irons for dealing with pirates. However you need not fear the redcoats, they're proving fairly ineffective at stopping the lady pirates who continue to compromise the lonely soldiers so far from home's sense of royal duty. 

Queen Ruby and her ladies in Raiding were wives, mothers and daughters laboring away in the run down port town of St. Phillip when they were taken prinsoner by Pirates to be sold as human booty. Learn how they turned the tables on their captors, found the magical power of the key to the sea and became legends of the sea in the legend of Queen Ruby or the Pirates and her ladies in raiding. 

If you are a business who would like to participate in redeeming that pirate coin and winning new customers by offering discounts, drawings or contests, please contact William Hamilton at wjhamilton29464@gmail.com to get a visit from one of the Ladies in Raiding to set you up. 

Expect royal tavern parleys for the Pirate's surrender, romance, drama of all kinds and a streetscape somewhere between the Pirates of Penzance, Jack Sparrow and Peter Pan with the occasional appearance of mermaids and mermen as well. It's going to be a memorable summer on the bus and at the Isle of Palms.   

Guided Group Trips- After the first weekend, we'll be leading group rides from locations around the area to the beach. The Waylin Heart Team from North Charleston has already begun planning a neighborhood trip, a three bus hop from their neighborhood between Dorchester Road and Rivers Ave. in North Charleston, near Burns Elementary School. 

We're working a special weekend of events to help the disabled reach and enjoy the beach. We need lots of strong partners for that effort. 

If you feel the desire to join Queen Ruby's ladies in Raiding or the loyal redcoats dispatched by his Majesty King George to suppress their piratical depredations please contact us at wjhamilton29464@gmail.com or (843) 870-5299. 

You can return to this page for updates and more information. 

Park Pleasantly, Play Downtown, Summer 2023

If you're planning to bus to the beach and want good bus connections to downtown Charleston and the free DASH bus system serving the Tourist District, as well as the Brewery Trolly and the free #20 Upper King bus. The hotels around Mt. Pleasant Town Centre are your best bet. You can also find good Transit connections with more frequent service to the city in the Hotels in the Ravenel gateway District, near the East end of the Ravenel Cooper River Bridges, where both the #40 and #41 run to Charleston offering a bus into and out of the city approximately every 45 minutes on average. Every 30 minutes some hours. See our Park Pleasantly, Play Downtown page for details on saving money and enhancing your Charleston vacation by staying in Mt. Pleasant.

Transit to the Atlantic - A six year effort

The CARTA board voted unanimously to run the IOP / Mt. Pleasant Beach Shuttle bus again for Summer, 2023 at its February meeting. A major effort to increase ridership is planned. 

Best friends of Lowcountry Transit began advocating for returning bus service to the beaches in Charleston in 2014. The six your effort included the July 2015 March to the Sea and the 2018 Folly Freedom Campaign. 

Bus service returned to the beach with a brief trial program in August of 2020 with full summer weekend service starting Memorial Weekend, 2021. The service was reapproved for a second full year and deployed with an improved route in 2022.  The CARTA board unanimously voted to run the service again in 2023 and board members indicated a strong interest in increasing ridership and further improvements to service including a possible connection to Sullivan's Island and parts of Ben Sawyer Blvd, connecting with the #41 route.

It is important to note, however, that extensions of the route depend on the impact of Car induced traffic congestion on roads near the beach which can be severe since so many people prefet frustrating car trips to the beach to search for limited parking over the convenience of transit. For the route to function, it must be able to reliably keep a schedule so it can connect to the #40 bus route to and from Charleston and the rest of the CARTA system. 

More Information- If you need to reach the organizers, contact William Hamilton at (843) 870-5299 or wjhamilton29464@gmail.com