OCEANSIDE, Calif. — Some people learned how to paint or garden during the pandemic; others set their sights and sails much higher. In this Zevely Zone, I went to Oceanside to search for a pirate ship treehouse.
I could have used a treasure map for this story, after a CBS 8 viewer asked us to navigate to the treehouse. Sure enough, there it was. During the pandemic, a lot of people found a new COVID hobby, but the Wilkinsons may be the only family who built a pirate ship.
Randy Wilkinson is a firefighter and father, who was home with his boys, Wyatt and Declan in 2020.
The mom of the family, Ana, is a trauma nurse. In 2020, she was saving lives in New York. "My husband called me and said I am going to make a pirate tree house and I said okay no problem," said Ana.
"Was this what you expected?" asked Randy? Ana replied, "This is not at all what I expected I thought it was a box in a tree I should have known better!"
Randy spent $5,000 constructing a three-level ship. "What's the deck on the top called?" asked Randy. His son Wyatt responded, "The poop deck. You are not allowed to go poop on it though." One level below in the Captain's Quarters.
The family was recently attacked: not by pirates but by bugs during a sleepover. "Mosquitoes ate me alive," said Declan.
I had an itch to find some treasure. "So much detail," I exclaimed as I toured the ship. Tug a line and a secret map appears out of the wall. "Yeah, so there is the X marks the spot," said Randy.
That was all I need to lead me straight to the loot. I opened the treasure chest. "You don't have a billion-dollar Power Ball ticket in here, do you?" I asked. "Uh no, it's even more valuable," said Randy showing me huge plastic diamonds and rubies.
RELATED: Oceanside artist builds pirate ship
They named the ship 'Serendipity' because Randy and Ana say falling in love and raising a family feels like a stroke of luck. "It's all about making memories, I love it," said Ana. It's unclear if these pirates will ever leave the safety of their Eucalyptus grove. You might drop your anchor there and stay forever too if your family tree looked like this.
Randy was recently promoted. He really can say he's a captain of the fire department and his own pirate ship.
Watch more Zevely Zone content below: