Strike me with thunder! This is the only surviving pirate cemetery (14 photos)

If you ever fancy watching whales break the surface, there's no better place than Nosy Boraha Island off the east coast of Madagascar. It's said to be a truly idyllic spot. However, three hundred years ago, woe betide any traveler who came within cannon shot of the island (then called Sainte-Marie). They would have been fleeced and, at best, sent back to sea in a boat.





Legend has it that in the 18th century, the pirate state of Libertalia flourished here. Scholars doubt this, but it certainly was teeming with seafaring cutthroats. This is evidenced by the only surviving pirate cemetery.



Located right along the route of merchant ships sailing from the East Indies to Europe, Sainte-Marie was an ideal staging point for plunder. Pirate colonization of the island began when fugitive convict Adam Baldridge established a base there in 1685 and began patrolling the coastal waters. By the early 18th century, when gentlemen of fortune began to be actively flushed out of the Caribbean, many of them moved to the Indian Ocean.







Thus, a veritable pirate town grew up on Sainte-Marie. Over a thousand corsairs called this place home. Most of them were venerable bandits living out their days here. Rumor had it that the commune had the beginnings of a state: some semblance of a constitution and a common treasury. The pirate idyll, however, didn't last long. The French, who descended on Madagascar, quickly established their own order.



A reminder of those times is the pirate cemetery, possibly the only one in the world preserved in good condition. At low tide, it can be reached by a narrow stone path, but at high tide, you'll have to take a pirogue, which the Magalisians, the island's indigenous inhabitants, will provide for a modest fee.



Centuries of brutal tropical rainfall have washed away the inscriptions from the tombstones, but names, nicknames, and dates can still be read on some of the three dozen slabs.



Here lies a female pirate. When her husband died, she became the captain of her own ship.



According to the inscription, this grave is the remains of a pirate killed by his comrades for theft. "Passersbyters are asked to pray for his soul," reads the tombstone.

A large black tomb stands out in the center of the cemetery. Locals claim this is the final resting place of the legendary Captain William Kidd. If you tell them that Kidd was executed in London, the natives will offer a different theory: upon learning of the death of the scourge of the seas, his comrades erected a monument on Sainte-Marie.



The island's pirate past still haunts us. Several years ago, archaeologist John de Bry discovered a 1733 map where the land was referred to as "Pirate Island." Using this map, the remains of three sunken ships were identified.





And in 2015, a 50-kilogram metal ingot was found off the coast. It bore mysterious symbols, and hot-headed explorers already had their picks sharpened, deciding it was a clue to Captain Kidd's treasure, still undiscovered. But it later turned out to be merely a fragment of a port structure.