Famous Pirates, Their Ships, and Where to Find Them

Who doesn't love a treasure map? From the 16th to the 18th century, pirates were as dangerous as any storm — and some have become history's most notorious seafarers. For history buffs, ghost story aficionados, and shipwreck-lovers, we've compiled a few intriguing itineraries, starting with the notorious...

Blackbeard (Edward Teach)

No name in ancient piracy evokes dread or inspires fascination quite like Blackbeard, whose fearsome reputation still looms large centuries after his death. Operating primarily in the West Indies and along the American eastern seaboard, Blackbeard was as much a master of intimidation as he was of naval tactics. His flagship, the captured Queen Anne’s Revenge, was heavily armed and perfectly suited for terrorizing merchant vessels. Blackbeard was killed in battle off North Carolina in 1718, but his legend endures as the quintessential pirate.

Where to Explore:

• Ocracoke Island, North Carolina – Yacht owners can anchor off this picturesque island, where Blackbeard met his end. Ocracoke Inlet is famed (get ready to take this with a tequila and salt) for sightings of Blackbeard's ghost, reportedly searching for his severed head.
• Beaufort, North Carolina – Explore the North Carolina Maritime Museum, home to artifacts recovered from the wreck of Queen Anne’s Revenge, discovered just offshore.

Grace O'Malley, Pirate Queen of Connaught

In America she may not be as famed as the few female pirates noted on the west side of the Atlantic, but Grace O'Malley is a far more notorious — and often heroic — figure on the eastern side. History-hunters will find her under multiple names: her Irish name was Gráinne Ní Mháille, pronounced in English somewhat similar to Granya, and was Anglicized in a number of different ways in contemporary documents — but her path, and sensational story, are more easily traced.

In mid-16th century Ireland, the encroachment of the Tudor dynasty began to threaten the hereditary rule of the local Irish clans. Grace's expertise in seafaring began early, when she convinced her father to take her sailing to Spain by cutting off her long hair to duck his excuses about how it'd tangle in the ship's lines. For several years her life continued as ordinarily as anyone might have expected— until, legend says, after the death of her husband, she took a shipwrecked sailor as a lover, and his murder sparked a dark turn for Grace that would fuel her fearsome reputation on the sea for years to come. Though she capitulated to the English queen Elizabeth I to exercise her naval prowess on behalf of the crown, her detractors continued to call for careful oversight of her activities, given the danger she presented when commanding her fleet.

Where to Explore:

• Caher Island – A small island of the west coast of County Mayo, this is where O'Malley was said to have begun her quest for revenge in earnest, hunting down her lover's murderers. Today it's the site of a number of ruins, situated between larger (and similarly beautiful) islands.
• Clare Island — Just north of Caher Island, and home of Granuaile's Castle, one of O'Malley's bases and a national monument.
• Rockfleet Castle, County Mayo – A stronghold for her family, and most likely the site of O'Malley's death — though some claim she was just as likely to have been interred at the abbey on Clare Island.

Samuel "Black Sam" Bellamy

So known because he wore his natural black hair and disdained the fashionable pale wigs of the time, Bellamy is remembered as one of the most successful pirates in history, based on the number of ships he captured. He and some of his associates had family in New England, and Cape Cod folklore claims he took up with a Massachusetts woman locally known as "the witch of Wellfleet," whose ghost supposedly wanders the town, waiting for him to return.

One of the last ships seized by Bellamy, the Whydah, became the (temporary) resting place of the infamous captain and most of his crew when the ship was caught in a nor'easter off the coast of Cape Cod. Its remains were discovered nearly two hundred years later, but it wouldn't make for a fun dive: three centuries of storms have scattered it well off the cape and buried the debris under several feet of sand.

Where to Explore:

• Wellfleet, Massachusetts – Specifically Marconi Beach, site of the sandbar where the Whydah initially ran aground. You're more likely to see surfers than anything: it's one of the best-known spots for dependable swells on the cape.
• Yarmouth, Massachusetts – Farther down the cape, the Whydah Pirate Museum houses a number of relics recovered from the ship's wreckage.

Captain Kidd (William Kidd)

The line between privateer and pirate was thin and fuzzy, and politics and personal feuds could turn a relatively respected captain into a fugitive in a snap. Kidd had a royal commission to hunt down pirates — and enemy French ships, which is where the aforementioned line started to get thin and fuzzy — for England, but he was largely unsuccessful...until he captured the wealth-laden merchant ship Quedagh Merchant, captained by an Englishman, and like well outside the bounds of his commission. Interestingly, he left the ship at an undisclosed location when he returned to his base of New York to announce the capture and propose distributing the wealth — but he was arrested for piracy, instead. He never revealed the location of his ship, and the Quedagh Merchant's whereabouts have been the subject of treasure-seekers' legends for decades.

Less than ten years ago, a likely candidate for the Quedagh Merchant's remains were found off the coast of Catalina Island in the Dominican Republic, and were opened to the public as a diving site — reports of the time say that the treasure was looted by the men left to guard the ship, but it's an idyllic place for a fascinating dive, at least.

Where to Explore:

• Isla Catalina, Dominican Republic — A popular day-trip island nearest the remains of the Quedagh Merchant.
• Bayahíbe, Dominican Republic — a stunning seaside town known for its nearby shipwrecks — up to four, now. Local outfitters offer guided dives of all of them, including Kidd's Quedagh Merchant.

Olivier "La Buse" Levasseur

Although at the time this French-born pirate was best known for his speed (hence his nickname, "the Buzzard") in capturing ships everywhere from the Caribbean to Brazil to the Madagascar, as well as for teaming up with fellow famed pirates like Samuel Bellamy, Levasseur's enduring mystery lies in a cryptogram he supposedly passed on to lead would-be treasure hunters to his fortune — estimated at $1 billion (or far more, by today's standards). It's worth noting that the cryptogram was never mentioned until it was allegedly discovered in the archives of the French national library, but the search continues, with a new suspected site published in 2023.

Where to Explore:

• Saint-Denis, Réunion – Where Levasseur was hanged, and allegedly flung his cryptogram into the crowd of onlookers and challenged them to find his treasure. In recent years, some researchers have focused their efforts here.
• Mahé, Seychelles – Excavations in search of the treasure have been focused on the island for decades, moving periodically to new prospects. The most famed is the Bel Ombre Treasure Site — which, as you might have guessed, contains no treasure; but it does have a small-but-interesting ruin once used by pirates.

How are shipwrecks found, anyway?

Some have been found the same way anglers find fish: sonar. In recent years lidar, which uses lasers to map topography, has also helped researchers find anomalies on the sea floor, and undersea metal detection can lead to big finds, literally: old cannons and anchors were made of iron, and are too heavy to drift (though they may be buried under several feet of sand). Modern techniques have barely begun to find the shipwrecks of the past — Blackbeard's Queen Anne's Revenge was only discovered in 2011, despite the ship's fame and detailed legends — and there are infinitely more to go: seafloor surveys near the coast of Texas found about 600 possible wrecks, with an estimated 4,000 scattered across the Gulf of Mexico. Statistically, if you've ever sailed a well-traveled route between any two points in any ocean, you've probably sailed over at least a few wrecks — and maybe a few pieces of eight.