St. Thomas
US Virgin Islands
March 21, 2012
We asked the man at the information booth about Blackbeard's Castle, a tourist point identified on the map. I had read a book on the pirates of the Caribbean the year before, and it included a fair amount of detail about Edward Teach's career of piracy, so I was pretty sure the man had never built himself a castle, on St. Thomas or anywhere else.
"It's here on the hill above town," he said, showing us on a map. "It's a nice place to walk around and see a view of the town."
Then he looked up at us. "It's not really a castle. But ... it reads well."
I nodded agreement, saying I didn't remember anything about Blackbeard having a castle. He looked carefully at us, and spoke slowly: "That's right. But ... it reads well."
