TREASURE CHEST - There were no banks for pirates. The ultimate offshore account was to hide treasure in a cave, or to bury it. The chest above was recovered from the sunken pirate ship Whydah, captained by Black Sam Bellamy, caught in a storm and lost with all but two of the 146 hands onboard on April 26th 1717.

It is a popular myth that pirates buried their treasure, as in Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. It’d actually be quite hard to bury the sort of treasure that pirates were after. The idea of pirates only hunting for gold and jewels is bit of a myth, as it would just weigh down the ship as their wealth accumulated.

Pirates preferred to target large merchant ships along regular shipping routes, being easy to find. All they had to do was sit and wait. They were primarily looking for medicines, spices, silks, sugar, rum and wine. Due to British trade restrictions, there was a demand for these items in the colonies and governors would often turn a blind eye to pirates supplying such luxuries.

Today, the financial pirates that fleece citizens with immunity from prosecution are bankers held in high esteem, and like the privateers of yesteryear, granted immunity by the State for their crimes, provided that they tow the party line that grants them such immunity, for bolstering an economy built on nothing less than modern slavery and money that is not worth the paper it is printed on.

Port Royal was the subject of an earthquake and tsunami, that sunk the debauched city beneath the waves, along with the privateer's grave. His treasure was never recovered from the island.

This is the inspiration for a John Storm ocean awareness adventure, featuring the Elizabeth Swann, an artificially intelligent ship, powered by renewable energy, with remarkable search and analysis abilities.

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