The Black Pearl

At first, all we saw was the shadowy shape of an old sailing ship,hidden back in the island by the fog and the mist. What is it? Then we saw the crow's nest and, as we stopped our car and peered inland, we could see that the fog was moving away. But the ship was still cloaked in mystery.

We were near Freeport, Grand Bahama, on a little trip over to visit a nice Bahamian island from Florida.

We had rented a car and were enjoying a ride around the island. We had been out to West End and had a beer and a snack at the little restaurant there.

On our way back, we saw the ghost ship. It was like seeing the FLying Dutchman materialize in front of your eyes!

It was far away on the other side of a canal that had been dug with future real estate development in mind. We hopped back in our car and drove around dirt roads for a while looking for the road down to the canal of the ghost ship.

Suddenly, there she was, right in front of us. Why it was just as if Jack Sparrow himself was welcoming us to his version of the Caribbean. But Jack was nowhere to be found. Instead, there was a young man. "It's the Black Pearl," he announced. "You know, from 'The Pirates of the Caribbean.'"

"Shiver me timbers, lad!" is what I thought. Yes, it was the Black Pearl. The real Black Pearl. Well, it was the real Black Pearl from the movie.

The young man gave us a long and thorough tour of the Black Pearl. Actually, it was a movie prop. It was floating on a barge and was a steel, wood and plastic mock up the Black Pearl. Even the broken window panes were plastic--as was the sludge that had grown on the Black Pearl during her years under water.

The next morning, our guide explained, the owners were going to tow the Black Pearl (on its barge of course) over to another Bahamain island. There it was destined to serve the rest of its days not with Davey Jones but entertaining tourists.

We enjoyed climbing all over the ship and having our pictures taken with the ghost of Jack Sparrow. Yes, we climbed all over the Black Pearl and lived to tell about it.

Quite a voyage!