Over the past four months or so I've read three books about pirates. One novel and two histories, if you must know. Those books are now on the bookshelves of our library somewhere near the two other books about pirates that I've hung on to from years ago. Pirates are kind of a thing with me, I guess.
Considering I don't really read that much any more (I'd guess 8-10 books a year maybe...) three books about buccaneers might seem like an obsession or some trip research. Turns out it's the latter. Our first trip of 2020 was a long weekend in the Bahamas last month. And given that the Bahamas (and more specifically the island of New Providence and the town of Nassau) were once essentially a no man's land and safe haven for pirates, it seemed natural to me that I would get some studying in before we landed so I could maximize my pirate experience while in country. Or at least it did to me.
So what is there to do pirate-wise in The Bahamas, you might ask? Walk the plank? Buy a parrot? Take swashbuckling lessons? Annoy everyone around you by saying "Arrrr!" over and over? Sing songs from The Pirates of Penzance (or Kristy McNichol's The Pirate Movie, if you prefer)? Hang out with Johnny Depp lookalikes and pretend to be Pirates of the Caribbean? Nah, none of that. And yes, I do know The Bahamas are not in the Caribbean Sea. But surely there must have been at least a little grog, right? Just a bit?
Once upon a time there was a Golden Age of Piracy. I don't mean that as a glamorous, glorified abstract notion of the romanticism of a life being a pirate. There was actually a Golden Age of Piracy. Although there's some debate about how far back in history (some say as far as 1650) this goes, most pirate scholars agree that the years 1716 to 1726 or thereabouts were certainly in the mix. Why those years? Because during that time, piracy in the new world was completely out of control. And it was all the fault of the British.
It is difficult for me to instantly recall all the wars over the centuries between England or Britain (England became Britain in 1707 when it merged with Scotland) and France. The Norman invasion of England in 1066, the Anglo-Norman War, the Anglo-French War, the Hundred Years' War, The Second Hundred Years' War, the list can go on and on and on. But one war I hadn't even realized had occurred was the War of Spanish Succession, which involved the British against the French and Spanish over the French monarch's right to control the French and Spanish throne. Or close enough. That's when piracy in the Caribbean (and places nearby like The Bahamas) began.
At some point during War of Spanish Succession (1702 to 1712 if you must know), the British Crown realized they were a little short of manpower and ship power, particularly in corners of the empire like oh, just south of the present day United States where the French and Spanish also had claimed territory. To overcome this shortage, the Crown issued privateering licenses to ship captains. These charters made it legal in the eyes of the King for ship captains and crews to attack and plunder French and Spanish ships and then keep most of the booty. Privateering licenses became very popular, particularly because they could be issued by not just the King of England but also by local and regional governors, like those in places like Jamaica and in each of the colonies on the American mainland.
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| Pirate flags usually featured a death head but often also displayed an hourglass. |
For many sailors, privateering was a great gig, particularly if they managed to stumble upon a ship or two laden with treasure. And at that time, the Spanish were engaged in taking as much gold out of places like Peru as their pillaging little hearts could stand and then sending those ships back to Spain across the Caribbean. So there were actually literally ships full of treasure out there.
In 1712, the War ended and Britain directed all their privateers to knock off whatever they were doing on behalf of themselves and the Crown on the oceans for the last 10 years. Most of these were young men who had done nothing else to make a living ever and all of a sudden they were told to stop, trade in their lucrative fun job and go back to farming or whatever other difficult and potentially dangerous vocations that might get them a standard of living about equal to extremely poor.
Or maybe they could go into the Royal Navy or sign on for work on a merchant ship, where ship captains were frequently tyrannical authoritarians who at a minimum bullied and at worst tortured and killed their men. No thanks! Not after spending time on a privateering vessel where captains served at the pleasure of the crew and spoils were divided almost equally (pirates also operated this way; it was astonishingly democratic).
Didn't happen. No way.
What did happen was privateers at first maybe ignored the news on the pretense that they just hadn't heard yet. I mean, after all, news traveled by ship at that point. Once it became obvious they couldn't say they hadn't heard the news, some privateers adopted different lives. Some didn't; they became pirates. And you better believe that some of those who abandoned the seas for farming of shopkeeping or something reversed course and went back to piracy. And with the Royal Navy recovering from a war and not yet focused on policing the western hemisphere, the Golden Age of Piracy was on!
So what does all this have to do with The Bahamas? As I've already pointed out, those 700 islands aren't even in the Caribbean. Am I just making whatever connection I can to pretend to be a pirate for a weekend? No. I am not.
The Bahamas sit just south and east of the tip of Florida. Collectively, they are sitting right in between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic, a prime travel route for ships heading from the new world back to Europe. The hundreds of islands made navigation (like say chasing a ship that had just attacked you) difficult and the shallow drafts just made it worse or impossible for any good-sized vessel to maneuver in unplanned conditions (like say being attacked). It was a perfect environment for small ships manned by small crews to hit larger ships and escape quickly.
And then there was the fact that The Bahamas were pretty much unsettled. Not by design but by circumstance. The town of Nassau was founded by the British in 1670 but during the War of Spanish Succession it was attacked and sacked by the French and Spanish four times which pretty much convinced everyone left to split town. When newly appointed governor Edward Birch arrived there in 1704 he found the place deserted so he left too. Nassau is a natural harbor. So with no government around and rich seas all around to plunder, the pirates moved on to New Providence island. And that's where we went last month and tried to discover what it's like to live the pirate life.
Just like Blackbeard, Charles Vane, Black Sam Bellamy, Benjamin Hornigold, Anne Bonney, Calico Jack Rackham and many many more. They were all in The Bahamas at one point.
Pirates of Nassau
It would seem to me that if you were on a pirates pilgrimage in The Bahamas and there was a pirate museum just a couple of blocks from the hotel where you were staying that the logical place to start your pirate adventure would the museum. We didn't think so. We did it last. Although at least we did it. I'm covering that first in this post because it does make sense to write it this way.
I expected Pirates of Nassau to be a complete sham, sort of a very very very low budget Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean. I grimaced as I paid the admission fee. Then we stepped inside.
The first room of the museum is a life size reconstruction of a pirate sloop (the "Revenge" if you must know) docked alongside a row of establishments (imagine bars and brothels I guess). Other than being way cleaner and way less smelly than what such a dock must have looked like in the early 18th century, it was awesome. I couldn't have imagined a better start to any museum like this. The ship looked real, the lighting was fantastic and the figures in the second story windows and slumped on the dock passed out drunk looked about as real as fake humans could look. I loved it!
As we walked down the dock we heard whispers from the end "tavern" which were stopped abruptly with a "Someone's coming! Shh!!!" when we got close. I know it's really easy in this day and age to do this but the first room of this place was simply amazing. Couldn't have been any better. Totally shocked. It was incredible.
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| The Revenge in dock. |
Pirates of Nassau definitely put all their money into the first room because after that, no space was as impressive as the first impression. The rest of the museum was a collection of dioramas, squeaky clean holds of ships (yeah...right!) and less impressive pirate figures, including a super not like real life broadside from Blackbeard himself (shown above). Eventually it deteriorates into a poster gallery of pirate themed movies, which is what I expected the whole thing to be in the first place.
But I'll say this for Pirates of Nassau: the material presented in the museum was completely accurate based on everything I read before I embarked on this trip. They also touched on the lives of many of the most famous pirates operating out of The Bahamas during the Golden Age, including Anne Bonney and Mary Read, the only two women operating as pirates that history has recorded (although I'm guessing there were actually way more).
The place also keeps you engaged with a series of True / False questions about pirate history. Does X mark the spot? Did pirates really have parrots on their shoulders? Was walking the plank a thing? I'm not telling. You'll have to go visit and find out for yourself. I'm astonished to be writing this but if you are in The Bahamas, I'd give this place a try. Seriously. Particularly if you know nothing about real pirate history. I came away very impressed.
Rum
If the information communicated to us in the Pirates of Nassau museum is correct, most of a pirate's life was "spent gambling and drinking huge quantities of alcohol". For what it's worth, I totally believe this. It seems to me from everything I've read that the alcoholic beverage of choice here was rum. With an honorable mention to Madeira wine, I suppose. We had to make sure we had some Rum in The Bahamas. After all, it wouldn't be a proper pirate trip without it, right?
Goombay Smash. Bahama Mama. Dark and Stormy. Piña Colada. Rum cake. Yes, yes, yes, yes and yes! We had them all in various quantities and I highly recommend both the Goombay Smash and the rum cake (we may have brought one or two back with us; OK...two). But especially the Goombay Smash.
Most liquor in the world is made from some sort of grain. Rum is not. It's made from sugar cane, the extremely labor intensive crop which drove the abominable slave trade from West Africa across the Atlantic Ocean. All so people in Europe could have sweet things. Pretty disgusting stuff. The distillation of rum comes from molasses and originally was done on the plantation where the stuff was grown. Today, rum is produced in dedicated distilleries and then barrel-aged on site. The longer the aging, the deeper the color. Just like bourbon or scotch.
Fortunately for this vacationing wannabe pirate, Nassau has its own distillery.
John Watling's Distillery was founded in 2010 on the site of an old sisal plantation built in 1789 named the Buena Vista Estate. The whirlwind tour of the place today lasts all of about 10 minutes and so doesn't add much to the experience, although the shot of frozen piña colada at the beginning was much appreciated. I've been through whiskey distilleries all sorts of places so I know how the distillation process works. I was just there for the tasting which we got to pretty quickly since the tour was less than 15 minutes long.
I've never been much of a rum drinker. The first drink I ever ordered as a legal adult was a piña colada because I didn't know what else to drink and pretty much knew I didn't like beer (oh the irony there...) but the rum drinks have been few and far between since then. Over the last dozen or so years, I've drank a lot of bourbon straight and lately I've dabbled in some excellent Irish whiskey (these trips...) but sipping rum? Never done that. Until last month in The Bahamas.
Watling's makes four different varieties of rum aged from two years to six years. By bourbon standards, this is child's play. Eight years. 12 years. 15 years. 25 years. It's all out there. By some cognac standards, it's dwarfed. There are 50 year and 75 year cognacs out there. But I guess rum in the Caribbean (or close to it) works at six years to the best stuff. Our tour guide, Doyle, told us this also but I'm not sure I followed his logic. I'm also not sure I followed the naming logic for the distillery. John Watling was a pirate who lived on San Salvador in The Bahamas for a while before heading to South America and getting shot in the liver in 1691. Pirate. Liver. Death. Let's name the place after this guy.
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| Clockwise from bottom left: Pale (2 years), Amber (3 years), Buena Vista (5 years), Single Barrel (6 years). |
For my first rum sipping ever, John Watling's was a good experience. The Pale, Amber and Buena Vista rums were all incredibly smooth with a sweetness and no burn when swallowing. As they should, the smoothness and flavor intensity increased with age and honestly, I'd drink both the Amber and Buena Vista neat any day. All three of those varieties are cut (meaning water is added) after leaving the barrel. The result is good and I'd certainly drink any of those in my next Goombay Smash.
The rum flights at Watling's are available two ways: with the Single Barrel and without. I went all the way to The Bahamas. There's no way I was not getting the Single Barrel.
I'm not going to say it was a mistake to get the Single Barrel but it was definitely my least favorite. Uncut it is so strong (it's also $112 a bottle!!) and super sweet. It's also got so much alcohol in it that it felt like it was evaporating in my mouth. I'd prefer the Buena Vista any day.
If I was a pirate on a ship, I'd drink any of them though. Even outside of a Goombay Smash.
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| The east rampart of Fort Montagu. Paradise Island is in the background to the north. |
Forts
Onto something more real... What better way to defend your Caribbean (or just outside the Caribbean) island from pirates than building a fort or two? New Providence island went two better than that and had four of them. All were built by the English (or British, depending on the date) to defend the island from the Spanish, not pirates. Heck, only one of the four (Fort Nassau) was even around during the Golden Age of Piracy and that one's long gone (it's now the site of the British Colonial Hilton, our hotel for our long weekend in Nassau).
I thought visiting a fort or two in our time on New Providence might give us an idea of what it might have been like to defend the island from pirates, even if that didn't actually happen. We decided to visit two of the three: Fort Fincastle at the highest point of the island and Fort Montagu at the east end of the natural harbor formed by Paradise Island (or Hog Island as it was called then) just to the north of New Providence. At one time, Fort Montagu and Fort Nassau would have bookended the harbor to the east and west.
Fort Fincastle was almost a complete waste of our time. It was a long walk uphill, we found most of the exhibits missing or unimpressive, and the fort never saw any combat action at all. Fort Montagu was much better.
Fort Montagu is the oldest of the three remaining forts, built from 1741 to 1742. It is also the only one of the three to have seen combat action, although the action they saw was defending the place against American revolutionaries in 1776 who came down to raid the place for supplies. The place is super small, maybe 100 feet maximum length on each of its four sides. There is a maybe 20 foot by 40 foot gatehouse at the west side which serves as a the single point of entry and which constitutes the only enclosed space in the Fort. There's a small courtyard in the center of the Fort and a cannon at each corner, although we were told the only original cannon is the one at the northwest corner.
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| Fort Montagu from the northeast. |
Fort Montagu is gorgeously sited. It's located on a corner of New Providence to the south of the harbor so water flanks the building on two of its four sides. It's this siting that made me want to visit this Fort in the first place as both Fort Fincastle and Fort Charlotte west of Nassau are effectively inland. The walls are not that high so you can get a pretty good sense of how isolated a soldier might feel if the island were under attack. It seems like if you managed to avoid the cannon and land that there would be no realistic way the soldiers inside the Fort could stop an armed force from taking it.
This seems especially true considering the meager quantity of cannons out there, although it didn't seem like there was that much space for too many more considering the room needed to maneuver these things. For clarification here, these cannon are not stationary. They are mounted on an apparatus with tracks that accommodates the distance the cannon recoils after firing. Combine the distance of the tracks with a reasonable arc to reposition the cannon and there's not much space for anything else. Astonishingly the guide at the Fort told us there were a total of 23 cannons at the Fort at one time. That's honestly difficult to believe but I'm taking it at face value. It must have been packed full of cannons in an almost cartoonish way.
Today Fort Montagu is pretty close to a lot of other stuff on New Providence. Because it's near the water there are hotels and villas pretty nearby for tourists to stay at. But back in the mid-1700s this tiny little fort must have been all alone out there. Sure, it was just a little more than two miles from Fort Nassau but in an emergency (meaning being under attack), it must have seemed like a long way away from anything.
There's one other nugget that the guide clued us in on: head upstairs to the north from the gatehouse and hang a left and you'll find a padlocked cell where captured pirates were held prior to trial and being sentenced to hang (Pirates were always hanged). I had a feeling there would be a pirate connection here somehow.
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| The pirates' holding cell, as seen through the legs of the only original cannon at Fort Montagu. |
Buried Treasure
After a museum, plenty of rum drinks and a visit or two to a fort, the only thing that could have made my Bahamas pirate adventure complete would be to go search for some buried treasure. Unfortunately, pirates didn't actually do this. There are many, many myths about pirates; with the possible exception surrounding a single incident with Captain Kidd in the late 1690s, pirates burying treasure is one of them. Pirates didn't bury treasure; they spent it. Fast. We'd have to be creative on this one.
On our second day in The Bahamas we took a trip out to Clifton Heritage National Park on the west end of New Providence. And here's where we found our buried treasure. And maybe some sunken wrecks at the same time.
Clifton Heritage National Park was established in 2004 to preserve the memory of the Lucayans (the people on the islands before Columbus got there) and the slaves brought over from Western Africa against their will to work the sugar cane plantations. To that end there are reconstructions of traditional dwellings that each group might have occupied in their time on New Providence island. One of the other features of the Park is an underwater sculpture garden and guided snorkeling out to see what's under the ocean. Here was our buried treasure.
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| Buried treasure? Sunken wreck? Both? Neither? |
Most snorkeling excursions that I have been on do not follow any specific path. You go where the fish are because that's generally what you are in the water to see. Clifton Heritage Park does it differently because their attractions under the sea don't move. They weigh tons and are laid there deliberately by man. And other than being buried in the shifting sand at the bottom of the ocean, they are always in the same spot. Mask on. Snorkel in. Fins on. Let's go!
A little ways off the shoreline at Clifton Heritage in about 20 feet of water or so there is a white flag on a pole surrounded by a ring of floats. That flag marks the largest of the sculptures in the park, called Ocean Atlas, standing about 17 or 18 feet high or so. That was our first destination after a quick stop to see what is usually a giant native face looking up from the sea floor. When we swam over, it was just a nose. Told you about the sand!
The approach to Ocean Atlas is from behind, and with my poor eyesight (I'm not aware of prescription masks being a thing, although they might be) it literally looks like a pile of rock worn smooth by the ocean's wave action. The detail, including the face looking up at the tremendous but invisible weight supported by the figure's back and right hand, is all on the ocean side of the sculpture. I suppose the idea here is where Atlas in traditional mythology held up the world on his shoulders, Ocean Atlas is supporting the surface of the water. Maybe. It's a little creepy and a little curious and pretty cool to find this kind of thing in the middle of the sea. Good thing there's a flag marking the spot, although I suppose that (and the ring of floats) is to warn off boats traveling in the area.
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| Ocean Atlas, Clifton Heritage National Park. |
While I didn't realize it at the time, there is a path made up of hollow perforated concrete spheres which leads you out to Ocean Atlas. I just headed for the flag! That path forms a ring to guide you to all the other stuff they have under the water. Like a trail of giant breadcrumbs leading you back home. Like the face we passed over on the way out to Ocean Atlas, many of the balls (which also double as hiding spots for some of the smaller fish) are almost completely buried in the sand.
Following the trail that day we came across another humanoid sculpture, this one clinging to a spike driven into the ocean floor and looking longingly up at the atmosphere above the water. This one didn't attract fish the way Ocean Atlas did and so was far less compelling than our first stop.
We also found the submerged remains of a plane. Not a real one; this once was apparently a prop from Jaws IV: The Revenge. I have to admit I believe I stopped my Jaws watching at Jaws 3-D (which, yes, I did see in the theater with 3-D glasses when 3-D films were making a short-lived comeback) so the wreck at the bottom of the sea west of New Providence didn't hold any special meaning for me.
Ocean Atlas is unquestionably the star of the show here. It's bigger and more detailed than any other attraction on the tour but more importantly you can get really close to it without diving down to have a closer look due to its proximity to the surface. It's a cool tour. I've never been snorkeling to see something other than what's alive below the waves. Plus it checked one last box in our pirate themed quest.
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| The path around the garden is marked with hollow spheres, seen here with a sergeant major close to the lens. |
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| Clinging on for dear life? Or wishing he could surface? |
Towards the end of the Golden Age of Piracy, Britain decided they had to deal with the pirate problem in The Bahamas. With any sort of serious naval conflict being halted for a while, having a piece of their claimed territory being run by a bunch of bloodthirsty outlaws just wasn't going to fly for very long. Plus lacking their crown-issued licenses to legally attack only French and Spanish ships, the pirates started taking whatever ships they pleased, including British ships. Something had to be done!
Actually a few things were done. First in September of 1717, King George I issued a full pardon to all pirates wishing to take it. The Act of Grace as it was called would grant a full and unconditional pardon for all acts of piracy committed prior to January 5, 1718 providing piracy was sworn off forever in the future. Second, with the French and Spanish navies no longer a concern, the Royal Navy went after the pirates hard. During a ten year span from 1716 to 1726, more than 400 pirates were captured and hanged for their crimes by the British crown. There must have been many more killed in the process. All of a sudden, piracy was no longer an unpunished crime. Odds were that if you committed piracy, it would catch up with you sooner rather than later. And you'd be swinging from a rope for it.
In The Bahamas, it took a combination of the pardon and more aggressive punishment along with some direct confrontation not by the British government, but by a private consortium. In exchange for ridding The Bahamas of the resident pirates, the partners in the consortium would receive governorship of the islands as well as all revenue generated by crops and trade for a 21 year period. It was rich enough to convince action to be taken.
The man at the pointy end of the spear on this venture was newly appointed governor of The Bahamas Woodes Rogers, a former privateer and slave ship captain. Rogers was effective in his role as governor, using a combination of the Act of Grace and employing reformed pirates to go chase and capture their former cohorts. Rogers today is immortalized in Nassau by his name gracing the harbor front street. I guess history has forgotten all about that whole slave ship captain thing.
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| Statue of Woodes Rogers in front of the British Colonial Hilton, Nassau. |
There is a romantic notion of piracy that it was somehow a glamorous vocation worthy of celebration. It wasn't. It was a high risk, criminal venture that preyed on hard working honest people. Sure the pirates of the Caribbean stuck it to the rich and powerful in Europe sometimes but they also damaged, tortured and killed a lot of people who had no other choice. And make no mistake, pirates got into it for the money. Plain and simple. All the stuff you'll hear about pirates being democracies is sort of true. But it was all about the money.
If it seems like we structured our entire two and half day trip to The Bahamas around pirates, we didn't. Not really. But it's difficult to avoid them because the history of piracy is so intertwined with the history of the islands. This stuff is literally everywhere. We focused our time on attractions and sites that spoke to the history of The Bahamas and deliberately avoided those that catered to cruise ship passengers looking to tie on one before getting back onto their big boat in time for dinner. To that end, we refused to head to the mega-resorts Baha Mar and Atlantis on New Providence and Paradise Island respectively. No interest in that stuff. We found our little corner of The Bahamas so much more rewarding. 1 island down, 699 to go.
I set one challenge out for myself in my time in The Bahamas and that was to find some flip flops. It's been years since I've owned a pair of these uncomfortable things but I figured I'd give it another shot. After all, it's been years since I've willingly flown to an island and spent time on the beach. I dragged us around to about every souvenir shop I could before finding a pair that I liked and that are super comfortable. I had to get some pirate flip flops. Love the design, the cloth straps and the arch support. Now I'm ready for a return trip.
How We Did It
Pirates of Nassau is right in downtown Nassau at the corner of King Street and George Street. It's open every day of the week. Check their website for hours. Admission is $13.50. It's worth it for the first room alone and the information in the museum. It's an incredible overview of pirate culture.
Just a bit to the west and south of Pirates of Nassau is John Watling's Distillery. It's about a half mile walk in total although there will be a little bit of a hill. Watling's is also open seven days a week and tours are free but a couple of bucks tip never hurt for the time the guide spends with you and the shot of frozen piña colada. There is tons of rum in bottles available for purchase at the end of the tour or you can buy any number of drinks with rum or without for consumption on the premises.
Whether you are staying in downtown Nassau or coming to New Providence on a cruise ship, both places are very accessible on foot.
Fort Montagu is located on the east end of Nassau Harbor. We took a taxi out there and our driver seemed incredulous that we were actually taking a cab specifically to visit the Fort. We're nerds, what can I say? It is definitely walkable from Nassau because we walked back. However, it's a long walk. Like 2-1/2 miles or so. If you go, you won't need long there. We spent as much time as we could reasonably spend in and around the Fort and managed just half an hour. It's really small. Admission as of January 2020 was a whole $2! I highly recommend a trip, even if our cab driver had never been asked to take anyone there before. Since there's not a whole lot to see between downtown and the Fort, I'd suggest taking a taxi one way and walking the other. Or just cabbing both ways.
Clifton Heritage National Park is very definitely not walkable in a reasonable amount of time. It's about a 15 to 16 mile trip one way. Driving is a must. When we first started researching how to get to Clifton Heritage National Park, the Park had a website. Their website offered pricing information and advertised rides from Nassau to the Park. Then about two weeks before our trip, the site went down and despite chatting on Facebook, emailing and calling, we could not get any information as to how to get there.
So we switched gears and found Marvelous Tours who got us to the Park on their Land and Sea tour. It didn't have quite the itinerary as what I remember on the Park's website and the cost may have been a bit more but as a tour on what for us was basically a two and a half day vacation, the four hours or so we spent with Jeremy from Marvelous Tours was perfect. When we booked with them there was an offer on their website for a 10% discount if we signed up for their email notifications. We did and they haven't emailed me since but the discount was appreciated. I definitely have nothing bad to say about this company. They did right by us, plus the group size was super small at four total.
And the flip flops: Rip Curl at Bay Street and Charlotte Street. They have many more Bahamas themed designs.
