[The ghoulish music may frighten you, but don't let it stop you from reading up about the history and lure of swashbuckling pirates. This website contains much information on nautical history. Captain Blood, aka John, serves with the Coast Guard and is only home 2-3 months a year. He reports on the myths of pirates and the Navy.--ck]

Around Halloween, you get to thinking of ghosts and ghouls. Well, my favorite was always the pirates and, oh yea, the candy. LOL

Let's meet John or Captain Blood as John is known online. John currently lives in Virginia Beach. He has lived there for the last 7 years with his mother who is his medical dependent and her boyfriend who is also his best friend. John has been in the Coast Guard for over 11 years and is currently stationed on the Coast Guard Cutter Legare, a 270 foot ship out of Portsmouth, Va. John says he isn't home much, only 2-3 months a year. John says that his hobbies would have to include traveling. While on the ship, John said he's been lucky to visit over 21 ports in Europe while sailing through the Mediterranean, Black, and Baltic Seas. He said they spend the bulk of their time in the Caribbean performing interdiction of drug traffickers, illegal migrants and "search and rescue."

Some of his other hobbies are bicycling, rollerblading, photography, and doing anything with the family ranging from opera, musicals, baseball, or hockey games, to "putt, putt" golf, or taking his aggression out on the playstation.

About a year ago, John said he was walking through Sears and saw the ad for WebTV, and decided to do some research about it. A couple of weeks later, he decided to get one for the sole purpose of keeping in touch with his mother via e-mail while underway "so I would know what was going on and to keep updated about her health."

John said, "Once we got the WebTV, I would have to say that the first thing we ever got involved in was TalkCity chatrooms where we met some incredible people whom I still keep in contact with today." John say's it was because of them he first learned about HTML. One of the people sent him an e-mail and had a signature on it and "I thought that it was so cool that I had to have one." So one of the people in the chatroom taught John how to use the HTML codes to place a picture on the e-mail and "after that, I was hooked."

John said, "I would have to say that my whole family kind of learned about making a webpage by trial and error. I really don't know why we all started to make a page, but the decision was made somehow." He said it first started out with the WebTV community, which is limited in what you can do and how much that you can place on a page, but it was a good way to learn what you can and cannot do. After a little trial and error, John decided to expand his horizons and use a different server. He went to GeoCities in order to do more with his webpage and found that there was so much that you could do.

I asked John how many e-mails he gets. He said, "You might say when it comes to e-mail, I am not on the frequent e-mailer program. I average about 35 e-mails a week, and that includes the 'once a day' news e-mail from our local newspaper." On a busy week with ads and all, he might get up to 50 a week. John's website is up to 1300 hits and John says, "I still have plans a plenty for my website." One major one includes placing it on a couple of the more powerful search engines to increase the number of hits, but John says this is not going to be done until he is basically at a stopping point. He has much more to work on, with the tall ships, as well as a part about the Coast Guard. "There is always room to grow in the nautical information area as well."

There is so much to be found on John's site, ranging from pictures of pirates and mermaids to even poetry. It is a site full of nautical information and nautical history hard pressed to be found anywhere else on the net. It also contains an extensive library of pirate books as well as one of the most thorough lists of pirate and mermaid links on the net. Along with the nautical information, there is an area devoted to the ports that pirates raided or even as their own capitals as well as information about the history and myths pertaining to pirates and the royal navy. All in all, I would have to say it is an interesting site.

I asked John about his likes and dislikes of WebTV. He said, "What are my likes and dislikes about the WebTV you ask? I think I would have to say that I like the simplicity of it all. How you can just push the power button, log-on and e-mail somebody and not have to worry about accidentally crashing an entire computer system or downloading a virus and losing everything. I have not enjoyed the last upgrade to the point where we downgraded back to the way it was so that we would not have problems with our e-mail or with backgrounds loading up or pages being too big to be viewed. I really don't know how to improve the WebTV without knowing what is involved. I know I do not want to go through what we did last time. This (LBL) was only $100 for us. This is not a computer and it reflects so. If you want to have everything that a computer can do, then go out and get the computer. My family purchased the WebTV with the sole thought of using it for e-mail. Anything extra has been like a bonus for us and that includes the websites that we have created."

John said he came up with his nic from watching all those old movies. "I am a sucker for classic movies ranging from Bogey to Flynn to Rathbone." John says he always enjoyed watching Errol Flynn in Captain Blood and all the other swashbuckler movies, so he thought it would be a cool nickname to have on the net. This and being a sailor, it just seemed kind of fitting at the time, "and I have to say I tend to have fun with it."

John said that he came up with Captain Blood's Cove with the same thought in mind. "I love the sea, and I love the history, the aura, and the old swashbuckling movies about pirates. There is so much history about this that I find interesting, so I thought I would create my own little cove containing as much research and information as I could with the hope that other people might find it as interesting."

For some of John's favorite sites, he says you really need to go see Morningstar's Dream and Captain Cutlass's Pirate webpages. John says they are some of the most beautiful and informative pages on the net. You can sail on over to these sites by going to John's "Pirate and Mermaid" links pages. It is definitely worth the trip.

John says he averages 1-2 hours a day on the net. This is unless he's working on his website, which he spends anywhere from 3-4 hours depending on his eyes. (I know that feeling) Any more than that and John say's he needs a spyglass to see the screen. LOL

The bulk of his time, he said he would rather spend with his family. John said, "All in all, it has been a worthwhile investment giving us many hours of gratification as well as serving its purpose in keeping me in touch with my family. Who would have thought that I would be interviewed about a website when only a year ago, I was getting this for the sole purpose of keeping in touch with my family!"

If you want to visit Johns site, you can do so by going to: Captian Bloods Cove or e-mail him at cptblood@webtv.net.

Well John, you've done a fine job with your site and I would also like to THANK YOU and your fellow service men for your service to our country, MD

[Community Editor's Notes: Likewise from the Net4TV staff and readers alike, we thank you also for your service to this fine country! Also, thank you for the informative webpage on nautical history!--ck]