I'd like to take a moment to talk about pirates. Bear with me...it is interesting! Most people think pirates wore an eye patch to cover a missing or wounded eye. However, the real reason was to condition themselves to be able to fight in the dark. You see, it takes a human eye about 20 minutes to fully adapt from bright sunlight to seeing in complete darkness. At times, a pirate would be fighting on deck in bright sunlight, then have to go under the deck where it is very dark to fight. Imagine going 20 minutes without good vision during battle! The eye patch therefore was used to prepare one eye to see in the dark, so when the pirate would go below deck they could swap the eye patch from one eye to the other, and then be able to see with the eye that had already adjusted to low light conditions. Rather smart!
