Return to Treasure Island and the Search for Captain Kidd

When history's most famous pirate, Captain Kidd, was hanged in 1701, he left behind a trail of treasure and treachery that stretched halfway around the world. For undersea explorer Barry Clifford, the biggest prize of all would be to find the Adventure Galley, Kidd's legendary pirate ship. In the world of pirate archaeology, it was the Holy Grail.

With the help of the Discovery Channel, Clifford fields an expedition that includes some of America's top experts in shipwreck recovery. Their goal is to find, identify, and possibly excavate the remains of history's most famous pirate ship. The search takes them to the exotic nation of Madagascar and a tiny island off its rocky coast known to historians as the model for Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. There, amid pirate graveyards, broken porcelain intended for a European royal family, and native rituals that include blood sacrifice, Clifford and his crew find far more than they bargained for. The island's murky harbor is filled with sunken pirate ships, making it difficult to single out the Adventure Galley, and the shores are teeming with people who want the expedition stopped. The team races to find the ship before dark forces expel it from the island -- forces motivated by the same resentment and greed that caused Kidd's downfall.

Return to Treasure Island and the Search for Captain Kidd weaves together two exciting stories: the saga of Captain William Kidd, one of history's most baffling and mysterious figures, and Barry Clifford's obsessive quest to find perhaps the most notorious pirate ship of all time. The result is a tale of treasure and adventure that ends in death -- both Kidd's and, three hundred years later, that of a rival archaeologist who attempts to stop Clifford's expedition.

With the pictures and all, this book is better than TV.


Should be titled "In Search of Permits"   November 9, 2003
 10 out of 11 found this review helpful

Clifford does a good job of alternating between the story of Captain Kidd and his own search for Kidd's flagship. But far too much of the book is dedicated to a long, boring rendition of Clifford's dealings with the local authorities, his rival ship hunter and the resulting phone calls and meetings required to secure permits for the excavation of the ship. Over 90 percent of the modern portion of the book reads like: "Then I called the President's daughter. Then she called me back. Then we met with the minister of the Interior. He told us to come back the next day. So I rode a bike around the island. The next day we called the President's daughter again...." The politics is simply filler so that he wouldn't be selling a 50 page book. To summarize -- there are many books that are a better use of your time.