Hunting pirate heaven: in search of the lost pirate utopias of the Indian Ocean

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-turned-buccaneer 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.