The Pirate Prince: Discovering the Priceless Treasures of the Sunken Ship Whydah : An Adventure

Barry Clifford’s The Pirate Prince is the first-person account of a modern-day treasure hunter’s quest to raise the legendary pirate ship Whydah, originally commissioned as a merchant slaver – sunk off the coast of Wellfleet, Massachusetts, during a raging northeaster on April 26, 1717. The shipwreck soon became a part of Cape Cod lore, as generations of would-be treasure seekers dreamed of finding gold, silver, ivory, and jewels. Barry Clifford did more than dream. Armed with a decade of historical and marine archaeological research, Clifford dove into the icy cape waters and one day came up with a gold doubloon in his hand. Like the colonial governor’s cartographer and salvor, Cyprian Southack, Clifford knew “the riches with the guns will lie buried in the sand.” The priceless treasure was still there! With a raffish crew and $6 million from Wall Street investors, Clifford began an extraordinary adventure of discovery that so far has yielded more than 100,000 artifacts, including gold and silver coins, jewelry, cannons, and personal effects of the pirates – even a human legbone, silk stocking, and shoe – that illuminate pirate life and culture as never before. Interwoven with his own exploits, Clifford pieces together and reveals the swashbuckling tale of the Whydak’s pirate adventures along the North American coast, and of its notorious pirate captain, Samuel “Black Sam” Bellamy. The richness of the treasure and its story has led to the creation of the Whydah Museum project, a cutting-edge interactive museum, now in development. Filled with hair-raising excitement, treasure, history, high-tech salvage techniques, archaeological innovations, and a deckful of colorful characters (past and present), The Pirate Prince is a fast-paced and thrillingly cinematic read, sure to captivate those who love action on the water – much in the great tradition of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Theatre Island and Joseph Conrad’s Sea Wolf.