Yo Ho Wha … ? Why are there pirates in the desert?

As Rich Strelak tells the tale, it was more than 400 years ago that a crew of pirates, cursed by a witch’s spell, were exiled to the desert, fated to never again taste or smell the salt of the sea.

Ever since then, the legend goes, they’ve been trying to break that spell and return to the sea. And every year, about this time, they reappear at Lorenzi Park to seek the public’s help in breaking the incantation that imprisons them.

It’s a fun story, one that’s almost insanely rich in details, and it forms the dramatic backbone of the third annual Pirate Fest Las Vegas, which runs Friday, Saturday and Sunday at Las Vegas’ Lorenzi Park, 3343 W. Washington Ave.

Hours are from noon to 7 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday. Single-day tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for children, seniors and military, while three-day armbands cost $30 for adults and $20 for children, seniors and military.

For more information — and to check out that crazy legend — visit the Pirate Fest website (www.piratefestlv.com).

That elaborate back story, organizer Strelak explains, is to give the Pirate Fest an interactive, more deeply layered, fun tone. Guests are encouraged to arrive in their finest pirate — or steampunk or faerie — costumes and participate in activities aimed at helping the landlocked pirates break free from the desert and return to the sea.

Strelak, who produces the event with his wife, Jan, are no strangers to offering immersive dramatic entertainment. They’ve been operating Halloween haunted houses here for several years, and Rich Strelak says Pirate Fest is the product of a quest to create a family-friendly, offbeat attraction between Halloweens.

“We looked at something like Renaissance fairs,” Strelak says, but “we wanted something that was really open to anybody.”

They discovered that pirate costumes have been among the top-selling Halloween costumes for years, even as movie superheroes and TV characters du jour have come and gone, and thought a pirate-themed celebration in the desert would be incongruously intriguing.

What’s behind America’s long-lasting pirate love? “I think people just love pirates,” Strelak says. “I think Disney kind of scrubbed the image up a bit and made them the bad boys, the rock stars, of their era. So it’s kind of the rogue-ness of them.”

Strelak says Pirate Fest attendance has increased every year since it became a Southern Nevada entertainment staple, and that he expects about 10,000 to visit this year. Then and now, it’s designed to be a family-friendly event with activities geared to both adults and kids, all of them geared to that overarching “help the pirates return to the sea” theme.

In fact, perhaps because of that back story, “we’ve had a high percentage of people come in costume every year,” Strelak says, recalling a friend who, assuming that the costumed people he saw walking around were staff members, “said, ‘not many are coming to the fair.’ His wife looked at him (and said), ‘Honey those are fairgoers. You have little kids and they’re dressed up.’ ”

Even better, the back story legend deliberately was left vague enough to also be welcoming to fans of steampunk and faerie costuming, and Strelak admits that the story has been known to accommodate even more gymnastic drama-stretching.

For example, he says, “we’ve had Wookies walking around.”

Scheduled entertainment will include singers, jugglers, dancers and other performers. Throughout the day, kids will be asked to perform activities that may help the pirates to break the witch’s spell. Meanwhile, games will include ax throwing, and other pirate-suitable activities.

Kids also will receive a treasure map when they arrive, designating a dozen separate activities for them to perform. “So they’ll walk the plank, they’ll learn how to sword-fight, they’ll do different tasks, and once they sign off on all the tasks, they’ll turn in the map and they get to become an official pirate and get a letter of marque and pirate booty, swag from different sponsors.”

Adults, meanwhile, can enjoy craft beer tastings, and there will be a real pirate-themed wedding at about 4 p.m. Saturday of two pirate fans who have decided to share their big day with the public.

At noon Sunday, a “cardboard regatta,” sponsored by Zappos, will see amateur pirates take to Lorenzi Park’s lake in their own cardboard-and-duct tape sailing vessels.

Strelak says prizes will be awarded for fastest boat and most creative boat, as well as a “Davy Jones’ Locker” award to honor a boat’s sinking abilities.

“If you’re going to sink,” Strelak says, “you’re going to have to do it with style.”

Contact reporter John Przybys at jprzybys@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0280 or follow @JJPrzybys on Twitter.