TAMPA, Fla. – As waves of pirates stormed the streets of Tampa on Saturday, they confronted perhaps their greatest barrier of the weekend: an unusually cold Florida winter.
“We had fun, but it’s very cold,” Carolina Valdes told News 6 as she left the Gasparilla parade route Saturday.
Valdes traveled from Orlando to attend Gasparilla for her fourth consecutive year. The annual festival celebrates all things pirates is Tampa’s longest-standing tradition.
“It was a lot emptier than usual,” Valdes observed.
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The powerful winds and cold rain did not appear to cloud the experience for many people who News 6 came across Saturday.
“Don’t be a silly Floridian,” Lisa Razler said. “Come dressed for the weather.”
As the day grew longer, the winds grew stronger.
“Sometimes you gotta be up north on a Florida day,” Cowboy Gatz said, as he stopped to talk to News 6 in downtown Tampa between hopping from bar to bar.
Hours after the winds had died down and the invasion of pirates came to an end, volunteers with “Keep Tampa Bay Beautiful” braved the frigid temperatures Sunday morning to clean up Bayshore Boulevard in the aftermath of Gasparilla.