Just in time for Halloween, a skeleton crew has docked its creepy craft at 2726 Versailles Court. A spectral helmsman steers the pirate ship, which is covered with cobwebs, skulls, ravens, spiders, the bones of rats and one skeletal dog.
It’s part of a yard-wide display that also includes a pirate skeleton sitting in the outdoor swing and another greeting visitors at the front door. The terrifying tableau is the creation of the Calvo family – Shaneen and Juan and their son, Joshua.
“It was a great, fun project for the whole family,” said Shaneen Calvo.
It was Joshua who first came up with the idea. Originally, he wanted to buy a pirate ship that was on sale at a nearby hardware store. But it was pricey and his mom vetoed that plan. Before long, the Landrum Middle School sixth-grader found an alternative.
“I was going to take out the trash, and I looked outside and I saw the canoe,” he said.
The family transformed their canoe into a scary pirate ship – including a helm created by Joshua out of some packing Styrofoam – but its maiden voyage was a disaster. Immediately after the display was complete, torrential rains poured down all night long.
“We thought we had waterproofed it enough, but apparently we didn’t,” said Shaneen Calvo. “In the morning, it tipped over, and it filled up with water. It totally flooded the canoe, and it tipped over and everything broke apart.”
After so much work, the Calvos were devastated. But they rebuilt, this time with better materials, including a covering of black landscaping fabric.
The pirate ship is scary enough in daylight, but nighttime casts a new light on the display – literally. Strings of scary lights are strung around the boat, and other lighting effects are in place – including light-up spiders and a projector that adds a ghost to the scene.
With the fate of trick-or-treating in doubt this year amid concerns about COVID-19, decorations like those at the Calvo home are keeping the spirit of Halloween, well, alive.
