Forget about Blackbeard, Captain Kidd and the rest. These pirates may have stopped at the Isles of Sholas. Or maybe not. Not a shred of evidence exists. But the crew of pirate John Quelch did step, very breifly, upon our the rocky Star Island. Sorry treasure hunters, the stolen Spanish gold was recovered in 1704. (Read story below)

This is not a Hollywood pirate tale. It is, instead, a tale about a real pirate named John Quelch and his stolen gold. But before we begin, you must cast aside everything you think you know about pirates. They are mostly fantasies, one historian writes, "to tell the children at nightfall".

The historical pirate is dead. He was stabbed in the back in the 1880s by Robert Louis Stephenson in his romantic novel Treasure Island. That was fiction and pirates have never been the same. This is fact.

So forget the cocked hat, eye-patch, peg-leg, striped shirt, and the colorful talking parrot. Forget "Aargh" and "Avast" and "Shiver me timbers" and all that garbage about burying great chests of gold at the Shoals. Forget Captain Hook and Long John Silver and erase your memory of actor Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow in the multi-billion dollar Disney movie franchise Pirates of the Caribbean.

CONTINUE REAL PIRATE STORY