Blackbeard Left a Little Something on the Beach for Us

It's a little known fact, but the famous pirate Blackbeard apparently spent a bit of time in what is now known as Chincoteague. I'm not sure of all the details, but I learned over Labor Day that he left a little bit of treasure behind.

It started out like any other day. Connor and Helen ran across the street to check on our crab trap. (And actually, although we did catch a few crabs, it was more of a crab feeding station since there were so many holes in the trap, and most crabs opted to dine and dash, rather than stay around and get eaten by Connor and Helen.)

There was initial disappointment at not finding a crab, and more disappointment when we found an old jar and piece of trash instead. But quickly, the day started looking up. Inside the glass jar was a map left by Blackbeard which indicated there was buried treasure nearby. There was much excitement as Connor and Helen raced to show me their find.

We drove to the beach and carefully studied the map, which seemed to indicate the treasure was buried on the bay side. Never mind that the bay side probably didn't exist in its current state when the map was allegedly penned. We were not going to be dissuaded from our hunt by facts!

We gathered a couple of apprentices and set out on our hunt!

We were doing our best to act casual, so as not to attract unwanted attention and risk having to split the booty multiple ways.

The treasure hunters followed a series of clues, and eventually we found this:

Our treasure hunters seemed a bit lost at times, but our intrepid adviser Stephen (who has been on a few hunts in his day) reminded us that sometimes pirates have peg legs, and they walk with a limp, which might cause them to veer off to the left.

There was lots of digging...

A bit of mid-adventure analyzing:

And finally, there was treasure!

Connor requested I contact the newspaper right away, but instead I told him I'd run the store on the wire out of my office. I might have forgotten to do this. My only hope now is that Stephen joins us next year. Otherwise, Ed and I are going to have to get mighty creative to top this year's trip.

Upon starting back to school, Connor seemed to have forgotten all about his trips to Kansas, Loon Lake, England, and Paris - but he did remember the treasure!

Elaine