The Real Reason Bermuda’s Beaches Are Pink

(fodors.com)

Whether you’re pulling up Google images of Bermuda’s pink-sand beaches for instant relaxation or vow to book a flight to the island (seriously, sinking your toes into this sugar-fine sand is dreamy!) there’s no doubt about it: these beaches are beautiful. Few other places in the world flaunt pink-sand beaches.

To be clear, this is not the Barbie-pink or petal-pink. It’s more like a mauve-y hue. But the differently colored sand is still something to experience and photograph.

Determined to crack the code about the science behind this phenomenon, we spoke to Dr. Amy Maas, a biological oceanographer who has lived in Bermuda for eight years. She works at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences.

“Within our lifetimes, they’ve always been pink beaches,” says Maas. And the sand is unlike any you’ve ever seen: both in appearance and in texture.

“It’s stickier,” says Maas. “Because it’s not rocky. Whereas a lot of the beaches on the East coast or West coast, they’re made up of broken-down rock, like terrestrial rock, which gives it that different feel.”

Where Are the Best Pink-Sand Beaches in Bermuda?

Let’s start with orientation. Say you’re only in Bermuda for a few nights and in addition to sampling Rum Swizzles (Bermuda’s national cocktail: rum, orange juice, pineapple juice, bitters, and grenadine) you desperately want to check out this pink-beach phenomenon for yourself. Where do you go?

According to Maas, if you only have time for one or two beaches, hit up the island’s South Shore. More specifically, Warwick Long Bay, Marley Beach, and Horeshoe Bay Cove. Just like the level of sunlight affects how blue an ocean’s water appears, how much light hits the sand demonstrates a different shade of pink.

But these are also consistent spots for pink sand. And it’s all because of a certain kind of single-celled animal that prefers the South Shore’s deeper waters.

Why are Bermuda's Beaches Pink?

The most concise explanation is that when single-celled organisms with red-colored shells–foraminifera, often called foram for short–that reside in the ocean die, they’re combined with the sand before washing up on the shoreline as pink. Their redness mixed with neutral hues in the sand—born out of quartz—is what makes the sand pink.

“Some of them live in the plankton and float around all their lives,” says Maas. “These guys are benthic [living on the bottom of the water]. They like to attach to things.”

Maas compares foram to coral. “It’s an animal that’s creating a rock [which] then is protecting other animals [as a reef] against wave action and storm action,” she says. “But unlike the corals, they’re single cells. When we think about other things that make shells, like clams or oysters or whatever, they build something called calcium carbonate, which is really hard. It’s what we see shells made out of. These guys [foram] add a little bit of magnesium. The thing that makes them so uniquely that color is [the] chemicals from the water they put into that shell.”

Those chemicals–magnesium and calcium carbonate–produce the shade of light ruby pink. Foram live in other bodies of water throughout the world, but their reaction in those waters differs.

There are fewer pink-sand beaches on the north side of Bermuda, near St. George’s—for a very specific reason that, again, has to do with science.

“The north side of the island is the inside of a volcano and it’s shallow reef,” explains Maas. “The water has to come through more so that’s a slightly different community. We tend to have less [foram] there.”

It’s illegal to take pink sand home from Bermuda that you’ve captured on the beach. However, many souvenir shops and craft markets sell tiny glass capsules of the pretty pink sand. Several jewelry artists like Alexandra Mosher and Jennifer Rodrigues also derive inspiration from the pink sand, transforming it into jewelry you can buy online.

“This whole island relies so much on those reefs that then become our sand that then become the attraction that bring people to it,” says Maas.” It’s intrinsically beautiful.”

https://www.fodors.com/world/caribbean/bermuda/experiences/news/why-are-bermudas-beaches-pink

Island of the Lost: An Extraordinary Story of Survival at the Edge of the World

 

(from Amazon)

It is 1864, and Captain Thomas Musgrave’s schooner, the Grafton, has just wrecked on Auckland Island, a forbidding piece of land 285 miles south of New Zealand. Battered by year-round freezing rain and constant winds, it is one of the most inhospitable places on earth. To be shipwrecked there means almost certain death.

Incredibly, at the same time on the opposite end of the island, another ship runs aground during a storm. Separated by only twenty miles and the island’s treacherous, impassable cliffs, the crews of the Grafton and the Invercauld face the same fate. And yet where the Invercauld’s crew turns inward on itself, fighting, starving, and even turning to cannibalism, Musgrave’s crew bands together to build a cabin and a forge—and eventually, to find a way to escape.

Using the survivors’ journals and historical records, award-winning maritime historian Joan Druett brings to life this extraordinary untold story about leadership and the fine line between order and chaos.

 https://www.amazon.com/Island-Lost-Shipwrecked-Edge-World-ebook/dp/B001DA9J4O

About the Author

I have written for as long as I can remember: my mother kept a "book" I wrote when I was four. It was several pages long, was well illustrated, told a story, and had no spelling mistakes!

In my teens I wrote for Maori and science fiction magazines. In my early twenties I worked in Toronto at a university press, and then in London as a copy editor for Gollanz. Back in New Zealand, I wrote travel articles for international magazines and regularly reviewed books for the "New Zealand Herald". This -- plus teaching college level biology -- was interrupted when I stumbled over the grave of a young whaling wife on the tropical island of Rarotonga. It was a life-changing experience..A Fulbright fellowship led to five months of research in New Bedford and Edgartown, Massachusetts; Mystic, Connecticut; and San Francisco, California. The result was the first in a series of books about seafaring wives, all of which have received awards..

Three years on a joint fellowship (with my maritime artist husband, the dear, departed Ron Druett) in the village of Orient on Long Island, led to participation in a prize-winning exhibit, “The Sailing Circle," which received substantial funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. This project won the highly prestigious Albert Corey Award.

Back in New Zealand, I was lucky in getting another fellowship, the Stout Fellowship at Victoria University, Wellington.This gave me the opportunity to keep on writing. Maritime stories for international magazines followed, and I reviewed books for the Boston Globe, the Listener, and other prestigious newspapers and journals. And of course there were books, including "Island of the Lost," which has become an enduring classic in the survival genre, and has been translated in Italy and Ukraine. "Tupaia," the biography of an astonishingly brilliant Tahitian priest and navigator, who sailed with Captain Cook. This won the NZ Post Best Non-fiction Book award, and. has been translated into Chinese and French.

Alternate movie poster for Dead Man's Chest

 artwork by Han S. on ArtStation

How Jimmy Buffett's "Margaritaville" Became the Most Valuable Song of All Time

(austinchronicle.com 7-21-17)

Ryan White begins his new biography of Jimmy Buffett with the transcript of a 2012 hearing before the Nevada Gaming Control Board.

"When you wrote that song, did you have any idea what it would become?" asks a board member.

"It's been a pretty good song," Buffett casually responds. "No, it was written in five minutes about a hot day in Austin, Texas, with a margarita and a beautiful woman. I finished it in Key West. I had no idea."

Buffett began composing "Margaritaville" one afternoon in 1976 after visiting a Mexican restaurant on Anderson Lane and then retreating to a friend's house in North­west Hills. When he landed back in Key West, he polished off the lead single to his 1977 album Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes, an unexpected hit for the largely unknown singer that peaked at No. 8 on Billboard charts and notched the 14th most popular song of the year.

The tune itself didn't even boast the Mississippi-born, Alabama-reared troubadour's best songwriting. It lacks the narrative spell of Buffett's "A Pirate Looks at Forty" or "Havana Daydreamin'," and the emotional tug of "Come Monday," his only previous Top 40 showing. Even as escapist fantasy, "Margaritaville" reads dubiously, a cold beverage covering up relationship regret and disgust at tourists ruining his personal paradise.

Even so, "Margaritaville" casts an undeniably inviting aesthetic. Inside a gentle commingling of steel drums, marimba, and electric piano, Buffett captures an immensely relatable vibe that gave rise to a musical cult second only to the Grateful Dead's. Riding a style dubbed "Gulf & Western," the song's crisp Nashville backing and tropical breeziness seeped country roots into urban suburbs previously untouched by the genre. Today, "Parrotheads" rival so-called Deadheads for the crown of fan clubs transcending their soundtrack.

The literal value of "Margaritaville," however, resides in a watershed 1983 trademark dispute and resolution.

When restaurant chain Chi-Chi's attempted to trademark "Margaritaville" as a drink special, Buffett filed suit. Although a song title cannot be trademarked, the singer's lawyers argued the name was synonymous with his. The restaurant responded that, "If a nexus exists between songs and restaurants, Opposer could claim an equal nexus between songs and the tangible items of the universe."

Whether or not Chi-Chi's defensive legal quip inadvertently inspired a billion-dollar enterprise, by the time the court ruled in favor of the musician, he'd branded Margaritaville across as many assets as possible. Buffett and Margaritaville were now synonymous in the eyes of the law.

Margaritaville Holdings, owned solely by Buffett and his business partner John Cohlan, now umbrellas everything from branded casinos, restaurants, and resorts across the world to a jewelry line and merchandise of nearly everything imaginable. Earlier this year, the company announced plans for "Latitude Margaritaville," retirement communities for Parrotheads "55 or better." Mean­while, their Landshark Lager and Margarita­ville Spirits continue to grow in market share, contributing to Margaritaville Holdings raking in $1.5 billion last year.

For his part, Buffett ranked No. 13 on Forbes' 2016 list of wealthiest American celebrities, with a net worth of $550 million. Other musicians rank higher (Sean Combs, Jay-Z, and Dr. Dre), but none with success stories built upon a single song.

One Particular Harbor

Austin's Jerry Jeff Walker first introduced Jimmy Buffett to Key West in 1971. The latter was on the run from Nashville, recovering from his flopped first album, Down to Earth, and a recent split from his first wife. Walker had royalties to burn after the success of 1968 hit "Mr. Bojangles," so he hosted his protégé there, and in doing so fed right into his friend's familial seafaring background – fostering a Caribbean awakening that changed the course of Buffett's life.

Moreover, as Walker settled into the progressive country scene of Texas in the early Seventies, he connected Buffett to the burgeoning alternative to Music City.

"Everything was adventurous enough in the Seventies that Austin was an obvious second home to [Buffett], at least spiritually," offers Ryan White. "Both Austin and Key West had a lot of that same outlaw spirit in common, but the difference was that Austin had clubs, and proximity to Houston and Dallas, so you could play around and make a living. He did well enough in Texas to be able to go all over."

If not exactly a fixture, Buffett at least became a familiar fellow traveler among local songwriters. He honed his solo act at Castle Creek with performances relying as much on a definitively Southern raconteur approach to stage patter as his songs themselves. During a multiple-night run at the seminal Lavaca Street listening room, Buffett also acquired the first piece of his Coral Reefer Band when Roger Bartlett convinced him he needed a lead guitarist.

"He came from the singer-songwriter background where he had the onstage rap going that was so common to those guys, and of course a great sense of humor and storytelling ability that was always entertaining," attests veteran Austin country purveyor Gary P. Nunn, whose Lost Gonzo Band helped define the cosmic cowboy movement while backing Walker and Michael Martin Murphey. "Jimmy was just always the nicest guy and so friendly and easygoing. It was the same vibe, just having a good time and celebrating life and enjoying ourselves, but there are apparently a lot more Parrotheads than there are cosmic cowboys."

Buffett found a common ethos in the local roots scene, as well as songs he would make his own. He recorded Willis Alan Ramsey's "Ballad of Spider John" and Keith Sykes' "The Coast of Marseille," with the latter eventually moving to Key West and joining the Coral Reefer Band. Buffett also appeared at Willie Nelson's inaugural 4th of July Picnic in 1974 at Texas World Speedway.

"Buffett wasn't really country," admits local genre pioneer Bob Livingston. "Jerry Jeff and Murphey were both folkies, but what made them folkies was the fact that Herb Steiner played steel guitar with us. Buffett was on the fringes of that. He was a little more mellow, certainly more than Jerry Jeff. He really had that island feel.

"Jerry Jeff would go against the grain at any cost, but Buffett just made his own grain."

"Austin paid attention because they paid attention to interesting things, and Jimmy was doing interesting songs," asserts White. "He fit in. He's always had an ability to fit in with whomever he's around. That speaks to his business success too, because he can fit into a room. He's as comfortable with barflies as he is business suits. He's always been able to do that."

Radio Margaritaville

Traditional songwriting riches generally depend on royalties, a diminishing revenue source in the streaming era. "Happy Birthday" still tops the all-time list, yielding over $50 million, although the song entered the public domain last year. Other perennial earners include "White Christmas," "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'," "Unchained Melody," and McCartney and Lennon's Beatles chestnut "Yesterday."

Atop "Margaritaville," Jimmy Buffett charted an entirely different route to riches.

In securing trademark to the name, its composer took the song from a mere copyright to a multinational empire. Everything's connected in Buffettland. Characters from his songs re-emerge in his novels. A new musical, Escape to Margaritaville, landing in Houston this October, weaves its narrative through a collection of his hits.

Equally notable is expansion beyond that finite body of work. In 1998, Buffett launched Radio Margaritaville, which broadcast his tunes and live shows online, as well as an expansive array of artists that fell into his general aesthetic, a thread running from Bob Marley to the Zac Brown Band. Headquartered in Austin, the station got picked up by SiriusXM and Dish Network. Following suit, the digital arm of Margaritaville, already a powerhouse in fan data mining and engagement, is developing content including mobile games and its own video channel.

"Really, the closest analogy I've come up with is Star Wars, which also came out in 1977," says White. "Just the way there was this original thing that's expanded to where everything has become part of this universe. Radio Margaritaville came out of an artist taking advantage of the internet when the rest of the industry was still focused on selling CDs."

Unsurprisingly, other artists have begun to follow the script. Not that branding and merchandising is in any way new to music, of course. From Fab Four lunch boxes to Dolly Parton's Dollywood, enterprising artists capitalize on their brands. Willie Nelson's entrepreneurial efforts, from biodiesel to weed, encompass a cultivated aesthetic. Dr. Dre's cut of the $3 billion acquisition of Beats by Apple netted him the largest single-year earnings by any living musician, according to Forbes.

As such, Sammy Hagar's Cabo Wabo brand may be the most analogous to Buffett's Margaritaville success. The onetime Van Halen frontman sold his tequila company, named after his 1988 song, to Gruppo Campari for $91 million. He retains the branding for his chain of Cabo Wabo bars, and last year announced a new liquor line.

Likewise, country star Kenny Chesney serves as Buffett's closest genre and business acolyte. Look no further than the former's brand of Blue Chair Bay Rum and the growing following for his No Shoes Nation – complete with No Shoes Radio. According to Forbes, Chesney now ranks as the second highest earner in country music behind only Garth Brooks. If 1990s Nashville got overrun by pop crossovers "gone country," then the past decade has been characterized by country artists gone fishing.

Savvy artists, from hip-hop to country, are today as keenly aware of their brand as their band, and the opportunities to merchandise it. That's a decidedly fine line for artists to tread, but also increasingly a reality they can't afford to ignore. Had Jerry Jeff Walker marketed his own brand of sangria wine and made Terlingua a destination experience, cosmic cowboys might be as ubiquitous as Parrotheads.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2017-07-21/how-jimmy-buffetts-margaritaville-became-the-most-valuable-song-of-all-time/

The Pirate King: The Strange Adventures of Henry Avery and the Birth of the Golden Age of Piracy

 

(from Amazon.com)

Henry Avery of Devon pillaged a fortune from a Mughal ship off the coast of India and then vanished into thin air—and into legend. More ballads, plays, biographies and books were written about Avery’s adventures than any other pirate. His contemporaries crowned him "the pirate king" for pulling off the richest heist in pirate history and escaping with his head intact (unlike Blackbeard and his infamous Flying Gang). Avery was now the most wanted criminal on earth. To the authorities, Avery was the enemy of all mankind. To the people he was a hero. Rumors swirled about his disappearance. The only certainty is that Henry Avery became a ghost.

What happened to the notorious Avery has been pirate history’s most baffling cold case for centuries. Now, in a remote archive, a coded letter written by "Avery the Pirate" himself, years after he disappeared, reveals a stunning truth. He was a pirate that came in from the cold . . .

In The Pirate King, Sean Kingsley and Rex Cowan brilliantly tie Avery to the shadowy lives of two other icons of the early 18th century, including Daniel Defoe, the world-famous novelist and—as few people know—a deep-cover spy with more than a hundred pseudonyms, and Archbishop Thomas Tenison, a Protestant with a hatred of Catholic France.

Sean Kingsley and Rex Cowan's The Pirate King brilliantly reveals the untold epic story of Henry Avery in all it's colorful glory—his exploits, his survival, his secret double life, and how he inspired the golden age of piracy.

https://www.amazon.com/Pirate-King-Strange-Adventures-Golden/dp/1639365958/ref=asc_df_1639365958?mcid=d0c0b10928023c6dbb4b764ba4c49d2b&tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=693309443448&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=5470892330580247959&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9029894&hvtargid=pla-2186667098536&psc=1

About the Author

Dr. Sean Kingsley is a marine archaeologist who has explored over 350 wrecks from Israel to America. Off the UK he identified the world’s earliest Royal African Company English ‘slaver’ ship. Sean writes for National Geographic and is the founder of Wreckwatch magazine about the world’s sunken wonders. He is the author of God's Gold: A Quest for the Lost Temple Treasures of Jerusalem and Enslaved: The Sunken History of the Translatlantic Slave Trade (with Simcha Jacobovici), also available from Pegasus Books.

Rex Cowan is a former lawyer turned shipwreck hunter, author and broadcaster. He served in the Royal Air Force and has a law degree from King’s College London and is also a Fulbright scholar. He has since become Britain’s most successful shipwreck hunter and worked with John Le Carré on A Century of Images. Photographs by the Gibson Family and Castaway and Wrecked.

Soliman Bay, Tulum, Mexico

 

Blackbeard: America's Most Notorious Pirate

 
(from Amazon.com)

The definitive biography of history's most fearsome and famous pirate.

Of all the colorful cutthroats who scoured the seas in search of plunder during the Golden Age of Piracy in the early eighteenth century, none was more ferocious or notorious than Blackbeard. As unforgettable as his savage career was, much of Blackbeard's life has been shrouded in mystery--until now.

Drawing on vivid descriptions of Blackbeard's attacks from his rare surviving victims, pirate expert Angus Konstam traces Blackbeard's career from its beginnings to his final defeat in a tremendous sea battle near his base at Ocracoke Island. Presenting dramatic accounts of the pirate's very effective tactics and his reputation for cruelty, Konstam offers a fascinating examination of the life and business of piracy and the lure of this brutal and bloody trade.

https://www.amazon.com/Blackbeard-Americas-Most-Notorious-Pirate/dp/047175885X/ref=sr_1_7_sspa?crid=257VJ2FHGZNWT&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.-gxJYoYtE6STLGF-UUyYLaO7wFmpx9Etgnb8ns4AbK8ApIaRX4pX1wxF1Ycun7yYQz9yknDinCscCumV3F3To0Gn9yQWt5zWbtDb-7cJOSwCy8YT1lOeQU6BcwgX1zxB3SKzmS2FCyOYAlsrWyto6AcfM1jnP46tPl2t3UZyPfaoQGBnlPft16c_olDzQS-ZGKonkgq7nw7HAHPgKC_n-PpJHLy0LNmo_l3_KAm6H4c.4F3V3L0caU3dFIdvbjU6SN-XWtR6jwPJ_mB_7Fhd7V0&dib_tag=se&keywords=blackbeard&qid=1736399396&s=books&sprefix=blackbeard%2Cstripbooks%2C167&sr=1-7-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9tdGY&psc=1

About the author

With over 50 history books in print, Angus is a widely recognised and much-published historian. While he specialises in military and naval history he has also written numerous more general history books, designed to make the subject more accessible to a wider audience. Uniquely he has been able to draw on his expertise as a senior museum curator who has worked on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as on his academic training as a historian and as a maritime archaeologist. 

His latest book is a full-length biography: Blackbeard: America's Most Notorious Pirate, which is published by Wiley & Sons. of New York (June 2006)

Angus is also just finished writing a history of the Allied landings at Salerno in September 1943 for the British publisher Pen & Sword, and he is currently working on a new project, with the working title of Supership: The Quest for the Renaissance Battleship. 

Angus lives in Edinburgh, in Scotland.

From the Inside Flap

"Imagination cannot form an idea of a Fury, from hell, to look more frightful."

--Captain Charles Johnson

Six loaded pistols dangled from his shoulder sling. Beneath a cocked fur cap, lighted candles sprouted from a bramble of whiskers the color of midnight. And the eyes. Wild, fierce, and malevolent, they haunted the memories of those few who were lucky enough to survive their piercing gaze.

Of all the colorful cutthroats who scoured the seas in search of plunder during the Golden Age of Piracy in the early eighteenth century, none was more ferocious or notorious than Blackbeard (who probably went by the name of Edward Teach). Nearly three centuries after his death his name is still synonymous with piracy. Not content with becoming the scourge of the Caribbean, this brutal and fearless hell-raiser then sailed north to strike terror in the hearts of American colonists from New York to the Carolinas.

As unforgettable as his savage career was, much of Blackbeard's life has been shrouded in mystery--until now. Who was this remarkable sea dog? Did he hail from Bristol, in England, or were his roots in colonial America? How did he rise from being an ordinary seaman to become the archetypal pirate? At a time when captured pirates were either hanged by the cartload or offered full pardons by colonial governors if they surrendered, what gave Blackbeard the audacity to blockade the port of Charleston, South Carolina, and remain defiant to the last?

Blackbeard: America's Most Notorious Pirate traces Teach's career from the time he went to sea to his final defeat in a tremendous sea battle near his base at Ocracoke Island. Pirate expert Angus Konstam follows in Blackbeard's bloody wake through the Caribbean and describes his encounters with many others in the trade, especially at Benjamin Hornigold's "pirate school" in the Bahamas. He also reveals how Teach assembled the most powerful pirate fleet of his day and examines his fateful alliance with the "gentleman pirate" Stede Bonnet.

Drawing on vivid descriptions of Blackbeard's attacks from his rare surviving victims, Konstam presents dramatic accounts of the pirate's very effective tactics as well as his reputation for cruelty. Angus also examines the life and business of piracy, explains the lure of the trade, and reveals how contraband played an important part in the establishment of colonial America's fragile community.

Tales of Blackbeard and his exploits have entertained readers ever since his death. In real life, however, a run-in with this fearsome pirate was no laughing matter. After reading Blackbeard, you'll count yourself lucky to have avoided experiencing the Golden Age of Piracy for yourself!

Colorful Cargo at the McLarty Treasure Museum

(verobeachmagazine.com 2-19-24)

Sometimes the greatest treasures are hidden in plain sight.

We know that well on the Treasure Coast, where salvage experts like Mel Fisher and his family are renowned for their amazing finds, and where there are still occasional stories of the glimmer of gold seen through the waters. Likewise, the origin stories of the treasure are hidden in plain sight. We all know about the 1715 hurricane and the shipwreck of the galleons. But what happened before the storm? The treasure of our coast had an intriguing journey even before it ended up on the Spanish ships that would prove bound for Davy Jones’ locker.

When the Treasure Fleet set sail from the great port of Havana, Cuba, it was carrying goods that came from South America and even from as far off as Asia. Did you know that Chinese porcelain was part of the cargo? Today, delicate blue-and-white ware can be seen at the McLarty Treasure Museum in Vero Beach and Mel Fisher’s Treasure Museum in Sebastian. Park Services Specialist and archaeologist Corey Kerkela of the McLarty Treasure Museum explains that these exotic items were carried across the Pacific by a separate fleet before they ended up on the Spanish Main (the body of Spanish colonial territories in the mainland Americas).  

“Chinese goods were shipped across the Pacific to Acapulco and then taken by donkey to Veracruz,” says Kerkela. The ships of the Pacific fleet were known as Manila galleons because they sailed from Manila in the Philippines, which had been explored by Magellan; subsequent voyages had led to the discovery of a route called the North Pacific Gyre, which made use of powerful currents to shorten the time involved in traversing the world’s greatest ocean. This course supplanted the famous “Silk Road”—the overland route that had brought Chinese goods to the West since ancient times, and which had been made even more famous by the adventures of Marco Polo. 

“As ships got more efficient,” Kerkela explains, “there was no longer the need for the overland route. What’s the use of going up through Samarkand and all those places when you can sail home?” Camel caravans trekking across the desert gave way to mighty ships crossing the blue Pacific.  

Today, experts identify the porcelain artifacts from the Treasure Fleet as Kangxi ware, named for the Qing Dynasty emperor during whose reign they were made. Kangxi porcelain is valued for its brilliant coloring, referred to as “underglaze sapphire blue,” and for beautiful imagery of bamboo, pines, flowers, and landscapes. The challenge, of course, was keeping these fragile works of art intact during the long voyages. Often they were packed in mud, which would then dry into a sturdy protective shield. If the Treasure Fleet had made it back to Spain, the humble dried mud would have been split open to reveal the precious and beautiful blue-and-white porcelain within. Of course, that was not to be. 

Gold and silver are more familiar cargo items for Spanish galleons; indeed, what would a Treasure Fleet be without them? Yet here, too, there are exotic stories behind the journeys of the artifacts. Gold and silver flooded into the Spanish Empire when the conquistadores, with their firearms, overran the Inca dominions; along with the differences in technology, the Inca were in the midst of a civil war at the time of the attack, distracting them from the impending threat. 

“After the conquest of the Inca, the Spanish found there was lots of gold in South America,” explains Kerkela. “There were walls of gold in Cuzco,” the Inca capital. “At first, the Spanish just melted down the walls.” Another account concerns a golden chain twice the length of Cuzco’s greatest public square. Furthermore, the Inca used gold and silver to fashion sculptures of llamas, alpacas, and other animals that were important to them, as well as human figures. These sculptures were often found in temples and mountain shrines. 

Curiously, the Inca never used gold as currency. They valued precious metals—gold was “the sweat of the sun” and silver “the tears of the moon.” However, rather than trading gold, they viewed it as the personal property of the emperor, who was associated with their sun god. To Europeans, however, gold and silver were money, and the conquistadores considered themselves rich beyond the dreams of avarice. Many precious items were melted down. A surviving artifact at the Mel Fisher Treasure Museum, however, may reflect the Inca background of much of the galleons’ cargo: a silver plate with carvings of condors. The regal condor, an enormous bird of the high Andes, was revered by the Inca and other South American peoples. 

Nevertheless, the conquest was in the 1500s, and by the time of the 1715 fleet, the wealth of the cities had already been plundered. Thus, Kerkela says, the gold and silver of the Treasure Fleet was largely from mining. “There was a mountain of silver called Potosi, and the silver was brought by horses and mules to Lima and then sailed up to Panama.” Even centuries before the Panama Canal, he points out, “Panama was always the shortest and easiest way to get across.”

Another treasure of the galleons was actually insectoid in origin. The cochineal, a relative of the mealybug, is the source of a bold crimson pigment. A related species had been used in the Middle East and Europe for centuries as a source of red pigment; however, the cochineal of Latin America provided a particularly flamboyant color that became highly prized when it was shipped back to the markets of the Old World. 

Before the conquest, the Inca had used cochineal for their valued textile arts; indeed, when the Inca surveyed the wealth of their empire, fine textiles were rated more highly than jewels, and the tradition of textile arts continues in Peru and Ecuador today. It may seem surprising to think of a crimson dye derived from insects being shipped back to Spain amid gold and silver, but cochineal dye was indeed among the treasures of the fleet.

Among the most beautiful treasures aboard the galleons were the deep green emeralds from the mines of Muzo, in what is today Colombia. “Muzo emeralds are the richest in the world,” Kerkela says. “Cartagena, Colombia is an amazing city—they have an emerald museum and a gold museum.” To this day, reaching the mines of Muzo is an adventure, as it calls for trekking across fog-shrouded Andean paths and then descending to the lush jungles and tropical vales where the fabled emeralds can be found. Imagine making the journey by llama or donkey!

As residents of the Treasure Coast, we know about the 1715 fleet and the quests of the famous salvagers. Yet the story behind the treasure adds to its allure and fascination. Tales of gold fever, war and intrigue, the wealth of empires, and perilous journeys across land and sea all lie behind the treasures of our coast.

https://verobeachmagazine.com/features/colorful-cargo-at-the-mclarty-treasure-museum/

The Golden Age of Piracy: The Truth Behind Pirate Myths

 

(from Amazon.com)

For thousands of years, pirates have terrorized the ocean voyager and the coastal inhabitant, plundered ship and shore, and wrought havoc on the lives and livelihoods of rich and poor alike. Around these desperate men has grown a body of myths and legends—fascinating tales that today strongly influence our notions of pirates and piracy. Most of these myths derive from the pirates of the “Golden Age,” from roughly 1655 to 1725. This was the age of the Spanish Main, of Henry Morgan and Blackbeard, of Bartholomew Sharp and Bartholomew Roberts.

The history of pirate myth is rich in action, at sea and ashore. However, the truth is far more interesting. In The Golden Age of Piracy, expert pirate historian Benerson Little debunks more than a dozen pirate myths that derive from this era—from the flying of the Jolly Roger to the burying of treasure, from walking the plank to the staging of epic sea battles—and shows that the truth is far more fascinating and disturbing than the romanticized legends.

Among Little’s revelations are that pirates of the Golden Age never made their captives walk the plank and that they, instead, were subject to horrendous torture, such as being burned or hung by their arms. Likewise, epic sea battles involving pirates were fairly rare because most prey surrendered immediately.

The stories are real and are drawn heavily from primary sources. Complementing them are colorful images of flags, ships, and buccaneers based on eyewitness accounts.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1510758348/ref=sspa_dk_hqp_detail_aax_0?psc=1&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9ocXBfc2hhcmVk

"Little has a deep affection for his subject that occasionally leads him to affectation, but his use of piratical jargon is more charming than jarring; clearly he’s having a good time, and so will readers. Packed with insight and adventure, Little’s book is sure to strike a note with armchair swashbucklers of all ages." —Publishers Weekly

About the author - Benerson Little is the author of multiple books and numerous articles on pirates, has twice appeared on the History Channel to discuss piracy, and has served as a historical analyst for the Starz pirate drama Black Sails. A former Navy SEAL, he has worked as a naval special warfare analyst, an intelligence analyst, and a consultant on maritime subjects. He lives in Huntsville, Alabama.