Pirate Wars...

We got up early Sunday morning to once again help load food and beer on the ships. There wasn’t much wind, so the captains didn’t even bother with the sails and all four ships just motored to Amsterdam. Along the way, we were surprised when the first mate pulled a large hose to the side of the ship and cranked on the water so we could have a pirate war with one of the other ships. Of course, Jimmy couldn’t resist manning the hose.

After a few hashers had a chance to soak a few other hashers, we got another surprise: these two ships were in cahoots to gang up on a third ship.

The unsuspecting hashers were actually set up by their own captain as he slowed to let the other two ships get in position. To make matters worse, Reinhardt knew what was happening and had called everyone up on deck so they were basically sitting ducks waiting to get soaked. Luckily everyone thought it was pretty cool to be caught in a pirate war.

While I stayed inside watching from behind windows, Veronica stayed dry by climbing above the action.

After the war, we continued towards Amsterdam. We had to wait at this point for the drawbridge to rise.

Once we reached our destination, Java Island on the IJ River in eastern Amsterdam, the girls grabbed their belongings and headed off to spend the day together in the city. Soon after our arrival, Jimmy and a co-hare set off to live lay the hangover trail around eastern Amsterdam. Due to some bad inside information, the pack ended up doing part of the trail backwards, but luckily I was able to reach Jimmy and he turned us around. It was a great trail, so glad that we didn’t miss any of it.

Party Animals...

Despite being the only attendees under 25, the girls had a great time drinking wine...

and dancing with sea animals.

We all had a great time dancing for hours. Pieter and Jimmy were clearly enjoying this special moment, but not so sure about how Melissa felt about this particular dance.

Love how Ashlynn snuck up on Veronica, who conked out while we were cleaning up.

Jimmy and Ashlynn carried coconut trees back to the beer van.

Mismanagement Knows How to Party...

The venue was awesome with charming Dutch decor in the restaurant downstairs where we enjoyed a buffet dinner and a proper party room upstairs with a DJ booth and giant bar. The Dutch Nash Hash Mismanagement got up on stage to thank everyone for their help with the weekend and take some photos of our little group. For such a small group, we managed to pull off a pretty incredible weekend.

We failed to get a photo of just Jimmy and me, but here’s a nice one of Reinhardt as Gulliver and Inga as a sea siren; they had by far the best costumes. 

Richard and Celine were clearly polite and classy pirates.

Our Mermaid Family...

Keeping with the sailing theme for the weekend, the theme for Saturday’s party was Shipwrecked. This seemed like a natural time for a reappearance of the Four Mermaids, who were last seen nearly 15 years ago.

Can’t imagine what the onlookers must have thought as we sprayed our hair orange in such a public place. 

Jimmy managed to borrow a wig before making his grand entrance.

Never did see the selfie, but thought this father-daughter moment was just precious.

Finding matching affordable costumes was challenging, but here’s what I managed to put together for us.

Our ship made for a great backdrop for photos.

Pieter managed to photobomb the girls.

Feeling that sisterly love!

Ola was a much lovelier version of a mermaid.

As we passed by the waterfront restaurants, this fellow seems to have fallen for Jimmy.

Little did we know when we posed for Halloween in 2001 in our official Disney Little Mermaid costumes, that nearly 15 years later we’d be posing as mermaids again but this time it would be in the Netherlands.

The Kraken...

Wish I could remember why these wankers were called into the circle for a special down-down from the Kraken, a sea monster made by Reinhardt and Inga out of a plastic bucket with eight plastic tubes attached. Imagine their surprise when Julie strapped them together with duct tape.

Beer was then poured into the bucket...

...which was raised into the air to allow gravity to convert that sea monster into a beer bong.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, that’s Jimmy front and center.

Rob and Alenka looked great manning the beer table.

Circling Up...

As the Religious Adviser (RA) for the FILTH, I was tasked with running the circles at the end of the runs. Considering that the largest circle I had ever run was with 20 hashers, you can imagine that I was pretty nervous about trying to be funny in front of 120 hashers. Reinhardt is a lot funnier than I am, so we took turns calling hashers up for down-downs for various crimes, which worked really well. 

Reinhardt had several down-downs, including for daring to wear new shoes to a hash weekend.

As the lead hare, it was no surprise that Jimmy drank multiple times.

The girls were recruited to use water guns to keep folks from having “private parties.” They looked adorable in the German Navy shirts that Inga loaned them.

Veronica took her job very seriously and walked around the circle regularly to soak folks who weren’t paying attention, while Ashlynn just hung out on the grass. With Veronica’s help, we managed to keep control, which was a relief.  

Here’s a good example of the general goofiness when another RA asked if he could call some hashers up for down-downs.

Hashing in Volendam...

Eventually we made our way by boat to Volendam, the location of our big party and where we’d be spending the night.

Unlike hares for most large hash events, Jimmy and his co-hares, including Veronica and Ashlynn, laid the trails live. Here he is giving one final pre-run brief for the last legs of the trail that everyone would be going on least part of.

This is the spot of the final big group beer break before the trail split between continuing into Edam, the next town over, or heading to the finish in Volendam. Perhaps not a surprise that I opted for the shorter route back. Everyone agreed that the trails were great.