Santa Clara • With just hours to go before the onslaught of Halloween revelers and trick-or-treaters, Todd and Shari Wood are having to make do with a skeleton crew.
Todd, an aviation electrical engineer, makes no bones about it that the motley crew he and his wife are overseeing to get their Santa Clara home shipshape isn’t the best.
One of them, who has been dubbed with the sobriquet “Drunken Duncan, is three sheets to the wind and in no condition to work. Another is “Wobbly William,” who is too tipsy and ginned up on rum to do much good. Looking down at passersby is “Leering Larry.” Standing at 12 feet tall, Davy Jones — unlike his crewmates — remains upright but does little else. Then there is Barbossa. Alas, he’s too busy tallying up his gold doubloons to be counted on.
Rounding out the 33-skeleton retinue of loafers and rogues is Jack, the newest crew member and Todd’s “pride and joy.” That would be Capt. Jack Sparrow, who is too busy swilling rum and singing pirate songs and sea shanties from the comfort of a rocking chair to do his part.
Welcome to the Pirates of Haunted Wood Cove, the pirate ship the Woods have erected — with a lot of help from their neighbors and friends — in the front yard of their home on 1993 Gubler Drive. Reaction to the attraction, loosely based on the “Pirates of the Caribbean,” is best summed up with one three-letter word:
“Wow!” exclaimed Ivins resident Debi Robinson, who toured the ship with her husband, Greg. “We love this Halloween haunt with its over-the-top playful vibe. Who knew that pirates could be shipwrecked in Santa Clara.”
Since its Oct. 1 opening, the Woods’ haunted ship has drawn 50 to 100 or more a night. An estimated 1,000 or more are expected to pack the pirate ship for Halloween, the last night for this year’s pirate show.
Visitors to Haunted Wood Cove are often greeted by a massive broadside from the ship’s six cannons, which recoil, flame red and spew smoke. The undead skeleton at the captain’s wheel steers the ship of dread as the songs “Ghostbusters,” “Monster Mash” and Harry Belefonte’s “Day O-The Banana Boat Song” blare from loudspeakers.
(Mark Eddington | The Salt Lake Tribune) Todd and Shari Wood, the creators of the Pirates of Haunted Wood Cove in Santa Clara.
“Shari really hit it out of the park in coming up with this year’s soundtrack,” Todd said.
To board the ship, visitors stream through the stern and exit through the bow. From stem to stern, the shop is packed with action figures. Skeletons garbed in their pirate finest pivot left and right, raise glasses and swig rum, swing from perches, and fire pistols that spit water vapor and spout smoke.
Another pirate sits astride a cannon that fires and recoils. And lasers interact with smoke machines to create a bog-like ambience that makes it look like one is walking through swamp water.
“I remember a cute little girl walking up to the smoke,” Todd recalled. “She goes, ‘I don’t want to get wet. Do I have to get wet?’ "
Fortunately, the Woods didn’t take too much of a bath financially to build the ship and stage the show. Well, the electrical bill can cause a bit of a jolt.
“We don’t even look [at the bill]. We don’t talk about fight club,” he quipped, determined to steer clear of contention.
Growing up in San Fernando Valley, California, Todd and his older brothers, Kevin and Scott, would pick a neighborhood house to decorate each year.
“We’d make cardboard skeletons and use fruit punch for blood and that kind of thing,” he said. “We had no budget or money to speak of, so we scrounged together things and made stuff out of trash.”
When he and Shari moved to Santa Clara from Simi Valley, California, 12 years ago, they built a haunted graveyard, but the ghosts they fashioned out of sheets and towels and the skeletons popping up out of the earth never really got off the ground, especially with youngsters.
“It was too scary for them,” Todd said.
That’s when the Woods decided on building a pirate ship — one where the emphasis would be on fun, not fright.
“Our rule is no gore, no horror, and no slashers,” Shari said.
Nonetheless, they had some frightening encounters with mother nature. Stiff winds blew over the makeshift cannon and skeleton at the captain’s wheel they mounted on their roof in 2015.
Three years later, they teamed up with a general contractor and friend, Ray Wirick, to build a real wooden ship with two masts and an actual deck to walk on in front of the home. But after a year, the hot southern Utah sun scorched the boat and warped the wood at warp speed. It was also so heavy that it required 14 neighbors and a fleet of furniture dollies to move it. When it began falling apart, the Woods scrapped it and salvaged what was usable.
(Mark Eddington | The Salt Lake Tribune) People tour the Pirates of Haunted Wood Cove in Santa Clara. The ship was constructed by Todd and Shari Wood this Halloween season.
Their latest incarnation is actually a shell of a ship that is much lighter and can be broken down into three parts. It is fashioned out of construction plywood and Styrofoam the Woods and their friends and family members carved and painted. Inside the ship’s walls are the guts — or “brains” — of the ship, the six cannons that are essentially smoke machines with PVC pipes on them and air servos that trigger screen-door actuators to make the weapons recoil.
There are also skeletons with servos, self-contained electrical devices, implanted in their heads to make them move. There are also several Light-O-Ramas systems, which control lights and synchronize them to music. Everything is automated and set on a timer.
As for the skeleton crew and equipment, the Woods press-ganged them from online stores, garage sales, and the Halloween Spirit store in St. George. “We get a lot of the stuff on clearance after the holidays,” Shari said.
The skeleton crew’s lack of work ethic is not their only shortcoming. Turns out, they are not very good at looting and plundering. As big of an attraction as the Woods’ pirate ship is, it is free of charge. That prompted one well-heeled St. George man to take out his wallet last year and give the Woods all the cash he was carrying. And he insisted the couple set up a donation box and open a Venmo account for patrons of the pirate ship to contribute.
Even though they began accepting donations halfway through October last year, the Woods cleared $1,200, which they used to offset the costs of building and maintaining the ship. This year they expect to collect more than $2,500, most of which they will donate to local animal rescue operations. Todd and Shari are the proud owners of four rescue pets.
Until recently, most of the buzz about the Woods’ pirate ship has been generated by word-of-mouth. But when a woman with the handle Red Rock and Sunshine posted a video of the attraction on Instagram, it went viral and drew 2.1 million views. Now Todd and Shari maintain Facebook and Instagram pages about the ship.
As a result, Haunted Wood Cove is no longer a well-kept secret. Still, for all the buzz and noise it generates, it has generated nary a complaint — but one.
“One neighbor complained that our ship is so popular that they now have to buy candy for all the trick-or-treaters who come to the area,” Shari said.
