Is the Sun past the Yardarm?

[Montagnard]

What the heck is a yardarm and why must the sun be past it before I can have a drink? Sounds like an old pirate saying. Didn’t pirates drink grog? What was a grog? Was it rum? Didn’t rum originate in the West Indies? If there is a West Indies, is there then an East Indies? Is the East Indies just off the coast of India? Wasn't the West Indies was named that because Columbus thought he had found India? Didn’t the people that named the East Indies know that India was just over the horizon?


I have a headache. I need a drink. Is the sun past the yardarm?

[skygazer]

1. You sound like me

I think too much.

I believe the yardarm is the crosspiece on the mast of a ship (though being a landlubber, I may be wrong). And pirates drank anything - the British Navy drank grog, which was watered rum. They got a ration of it every day to make up for being impressed (which meant they were yanked out of the bar or off the ship they were on and forced to serve in the bloody British Navy).

I would imagine the sun would be past the yardarm after hitting its zenith at noon.

My advice is to have a drink and google "yardarm." :toast: