Catamaran Charters - Pirates of the Caribbean

Anne Bonny was just about the prettiest Irish Colleen who ever grew up to slit a mans gullet, or

skid her dainty feet on the blood-spattered deck of a pirate ship.

She was born in Cork, Ireland, the illegitimate child of a prominent attorney and his wife's maid. The scandal attending Anne's birth caused her father to relocate with his new family to South Carolina, where he prospered as a merchant. Anne grew up to be a handsome woman, with much vitality and courage, but also a fierce temper. When only twelve, in a fit of temper, she stabbed to death a servant girl with a table knife.

Rather than one of the wealthy gentleman her father approved of, Anne married a penniless ne'er-do-well sailor by the name of James Bonny. After a fervent honeymoon, he slipped away to sea and never came back. Anne tracked him down to the famous Virgin Islands at the tender age of sixteen. Anne was not on a Caribbean catamaran vacation. In the Virgin Islands she committed her second murder by slitting the throat of her runaway husband in a St Thomas brothel. She transferred her affections to Captain Jack Rackman, better known as Calico Jack, because of the colorful shirts he wore.

Although a handsome devil, Jack had been just another run of the mill pirate. Anne apparently inspired him to greatness and soon this pair became the scourge of the Caribbean, cutting a bloody swath as they plundered everything that crossed their paths, from rich merchantmen to small fishing vessels. According to Defoe, Anne was the lioness in battle and was as active as any of her male shipmates with cutlass and marlinspike, always one of the leaders in boarding a prize. In late October 1720, Rackman dropped anchor off the coats of Jamaica, the pirates were getting gloriously drunk when a British Navy sloop surprised them. Rackman and most of his men decided not to fight and hid in the hold in a cowardly manner. Anne fought with the Navy men furiously boldly firing her pistols, then flailing away with cutlass and axe. When she realized all was lost, she turned on her hiding mates killing 2 pirates, wounding eight others. At a trial in Jamaica Anne, Calico Jack and the surviving pirates were sentenced to be executed. When the judge asked if Anne had anything to say, she replied. "Milord, I plead with my belly," she was pregnant. The judge immediately stayed the other for execution. No English court had the power to kill an unborn child, no matter how guilty the mother.

As Calico Jack went to his death, the unrelenting Anne told him, "Had you fought like a man you would not have been hanged like a dog!"
After the birth of her child her father bought her release, and she returned to Charlotte Amalie where she opened a gaming house and further acquired a sporting reputation.

Today there are no Anne Bonny's or Calico Jacks' to worry about but they were wise to find the catamaran charter paradise of the world. The pirates of the 1700's would be astounded by the number of Caribbean catamaran charters being done in the same area and with these different sailing yachts.