I was more or less in the same situation.
I just dealt with it. Took me about 7 hours of non-stop killing of the booty bay guards to get to honored.
Then you just turn in the cloth + the odd items at the 4 turncoat questgivers and get back up to a decent rep level rather fast. Then it's pirates galore. It doesn't take as much time as people think. It's a tedious grind, but it's the insane title, it's to be expected.