Pirate Reality Check Mystery Cache

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The romantic image of piracy and its treasure-burying swashbucklers in popular culture is hard to escape. From Hollywood movies to sports teams to Halloween costumes—pirates are everywhere. Geocaches are no exception and they fit the theme of hidden treasure perfectly. A search for “pirate” geocaches resulted in 1111 hits! I decided I had to get with the craze but I decided to make my pirate-themed cache with more of the reality of pirates than the myth. It was also pretty darned great to have an excuse to show a picture of Keira Knightly. Question: Why are pirates so popular? Answer: They just arrrrrrrr.

Treasure Island

Digit 1: Last digit of the year Treasure Island was published as a book.

Walking the plank

Although walking the plank plays a large role in contemporary pirate lore, in reality walking the plank was a very rare phenomenon. Very few real sources of such acts can be found. Most pirates, mutineers, etc., would not bother with such an elaborate means of doing away with their captives. Marooning was much more common.

Digit 2: Last digit of year that William Smith, captain of the sloop Blessing, was forced to walk the plank by the pirate crew of the schooner Emanuel.

Pirate Accent

The pirate accent was popularized by actor Robert Newton, who portrayed Long John Silver in the Disney films “Treasure Island” and “Long John Silver”. He is described as the "patron saint" of Talk Like A Pirate Day. Newton was a native of Dorset, and used his native West Country dialect in his portrayal of Long John Silver. Some pirates certainly came from the West Country of England- Henry Avery, Edward Teach, Edward Low and others - and they probably spoke with what we now think of as being a "pirate" accent. But many others came from other parts of Britain, from Wales, Scotland, from the North Country; others came from other countries, from France, Holland, the Carribean and the American colonies. Those pirates would all have had their own accents from their own homes and would not have spoken "loike a poirate, arrr".

Digit 3: Digit of the decade that Robert Newton’s films were released (the x in 19x0 and 19x2).

Captain Kidd and Buried Treasure

According to popular conception, pirates often buried their stolen fortunes in remote places, intending to return for them later (often with the use of treasure maps). However, the idea that pirate gangs buried vast amounts of treasure is mostly myth. Pirates didn’t expect to live very long, considering the business they were in, so planning for the future wasn’t high on their list of concerns. Since pleasure right now was their only real desire, they’d take any treasure they got to a pirate-friendly port and spend it all on liquor and women as quickly as ever they could. Besides, what crew would stand for their captain burying the treasure they’d won together?

The only pirate known to have buried any treasure was William Kidd. Kidd had originally been commissioned as a privateer for England, but his behavior had strayed into outright piracy, and he hoped that his treasure could serve as a bargaining chip in negotiations to avoid punishment. He buried a small cache of treasure on an island while sailing to Boston to attempt to clear his name. However, the treasure was removed by order of Governor Bellomont and used as evidence against him. His bid to clear his name failed and Kidd was hanged as a pirate. The possibility that Kidd buried additional treasure elsewhere contributed considerably to the growth of his legend and gave impetus to the never-ending treasure hunts conducted on Oak Island in Nova Scotia, Long Island in New York, and elsewhere.

Digit 4: Last digit of the year Kidd was hanged.
Digit 5: Last digit of the year Kidd buried treasure on Gardiner’s Island.

Barbary wars

The Barbary Corsairs were an alliance of Muslim pirates and privateers who operated from North Africa from the time of the Crusades (11th century) until the early 19th century. The First Barbary War was the first of two wars fought between the United States of America (briefly joined by a small Swedish fleet) and the North African states known collectively as the Barbary States.

Digit 6: Last digit of the year the First Barbary War ended.

Under the Black Flag

Robert Louis Stevenson nailed it in one important respect: he portrayed pirates as murderous and cruel. Later books and movies would romanticize them as swashbuckling adventurers. Author David Cordingly examines why the myth of the romance of piratehood endures. His book, Under the Black Flag is probably the best single volume on things piratical, and it reminds us that "pirates were not maritime versions of Robin Hood and his merry men," and their "attacks were frequently accompanied by extreme violence, torture, and death." One pirate mentioned in Cordingly's book, William Fly, is only notable for having died in the proper year for this puzzle.

Digit 7: Last digit of the year William Fly was hanged.

Parrots

Seafarers in the tropics commonly brought home exotic fauna as souvenirs. Parrots were particularly popular because they were colorful, could be taught to speak, and were easier to care for than, say, monkeys. They also fetched a good price back in London. However, one can't imagine a crewman actually heaving at the capstan with a bird perched on him.

Digit 8 and Digit 9: First two digits in the west coordinates of the San Diego zoo. (I really wanted an entry about parrots!)

Eye Patch

One of the stereotypical features of a pirate in popular culture, the eye patch, dates back to the Arab pirate Rahmah ibn Jabir al-Jalahimah, who wore it after losing an eye in battle in the 18th century. The idea that some pirates wore eyepatches without needing to, as Mythbusters tested plausible, is highly unlikely, considering that the loss of depth perception would almost certainly have outweighed the gain of night vision below decks.

Digit 10 and Digit 11: Two-digit number of the MythBusters Pirate Special episode that talked about eyepatches.

Black Bart

Bartholomew Roberts, born John Roberts, was a Welsh pirate who raided shipping off the Americas and West Africa. He was the most successful pirate of the Golden Age of Piracy, capturing far more ships than some of the best-known pirates of this era such as Blackbeard or Captain Kidd. He is estimated to have captured over 470 vessels.

Digit 12: Last digit of the year Black Bart was killed.

Jolly Roger

The Jolly Roger is the name given to any of various flags flown to identify a ship's crew as pirates. The flag most usually identified as the Jolly Roger today is the skull and crossbones. This design was used by several pirates, but others used different designs. Some flags also include an hourglass, representing that the victims' time to surrender was running out. Plain black flags were more often used than the Jolly Roger.

One pirate who used the classic Jolly Roger flag was Edward England, born Edward Seegar in Ireland. He differed from many other pirates of his day in that he did not kill captives unless it was absolutely necessary. However, this ultimately led to his downfall, for his crew mutinied against him when he refused to kill sailors from the Cassandra, an English trading ship. He was subsequently marooned on Mauritius with two other crew members, where they fashioned a small raft and made it to Madagascar.

Digit 13: Last digit of the year before Edward England died. (Note: Sources differ, but per my source, the digit is not zero or one!)

Blackbeard

Edward Teach or Edward Thatch, better known as Blackbeard, was perhaps the most famous pirate among English speaking nations. He and his ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, became notorious. His nickname was derived from his thick black beard and fearsome appearance; he was reported to have tied lit fuses under his hat to frighten his enemies.

At one point, Teach formed an alliance of pirates, and blockaded the port of Charleston, South Carolina. After successfully ransoming the port's inhabitants, he ran his ship aground and then accepted a royal pardon. He was soon back at sea however.

A shrewd and calculating leader, Teach used his fearsome image instead of force to elicit the response he desired from those he robbed. There are no known accounts of him ever having harmed or murdered those he held captive. He was romanticised after his death, and became the inspiration for a number of pirate-themed works of fiction across a range of genres.

Digit 14: Digit of the decade when Blackbeard was active, as in the x in 17x6 to 17x8.

Ned Low

Many of the most well known pirates in historical lore originate from the Golden Age of Piracy, which spans from the 1650s to the 1720s. Some of them didn’t exactly fit the myth of a pirate as a romantic hero.

Captain Edward "Ned" Low was a notorious English pirate during the latter days of the Golden Age of Piracy. Low and his pirate crews captured at least a hundred ships during his short career, burning most of them. Although he was active for only three years, Low remains notorious as one of the most vicious pirates of the age, with a reputation for violently torturing his victims before killing them. The New York Times called him a torturer, whose methods would have "done credit to the ingenuity of the Spanish Inquisition in its darkest days".

Digit 15: Last digit of year Edward Low supposedly died.

The 10 geocoins originally placed in this cache were obtained from a buried pirate stash related to the Pirate Landing (20 Pieces of eight) cache. The owner created an elaborate code and story leading to a buried treasure chest, and the chest was filled with amazing pirate stuff. It was very cool, and it inspired me to make this cache.