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Hunting Pirate Heaven
In Search of the Lost Pirate Utopias of the Indian Ocean
Kevin Rushby
Categories:
» History
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Hardcover
ISBN: 0-8027-1423-4
Price: $25.00
304 pages
Size: 6 x 9
September 2003
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Hunting Pirate Heaven
In Search of the Lost Pirate Utopias of the Indian Ocean
Kevin Rushby
| A chance
meeting on the muddy foreshore of the Thames River launched Kevin
Rushby on a voyage to rediscover the lost pirate settlements that once dotted
the islands and atolls of the Indian Ocean. Hitching rides on a motley assortment
of freighters, dhows, yachts, and fishing smacks, Rushby sailed up the
east coast of Africa, then turned east to the islands of Comoros and
Madagascar, his ultimate objective being to locate the descendants of the
infamous
sixteenth-century pirates—such as Captain Misson, the legendary French
pirate who may have been dreamed up by Daniel Defoe; English sailor-turnedbuccaneer
Thomas White; and Rhode Islander Thomas Tew—who carved kingdoms
for themselves in the remote jungles of northeast Madagascar.
As he traveled, Rushby met up with the crackpot dreamers, the tough settlers,
the fighters and the failures, who live on the coasts and islands now.
His is a romantic story in the old-fashioned sense of the word, full of
adventure
and colorful incident: voyages to islands where forgotten Portuguese
forts lie covered in jungle, where some have tried to shoot their way to
paradise,
and where the ocean can destroy lives and dreams as quickly as men
and women create them.
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