Cocos Island Comment
Cocos Island Comment
In my opinion a treasure hunter can forget about Cocos Island.. There are just a few landing spots on the island and the surf can be treacherous. The person(s) who hid something, if anything, did certainly not carry the treasure for days at 100% air humidity across this hilly, wayless, heavily forested island. These few likely hiding spots, above all Wafer Bay, have been searched dozens of times.
Every new search expedition contaminates the island with additional metal junk and makes the use of a metal detector more difficult.
If I – in spite of the concerns expressed above - would examine the story more closely then I would try to find any hard evidence concerning lost or found (and possibly sold) items in the first place. Neither the loss nor any finds are documented. The countless book authors who serve this topic usually just copy from one another and do not make any own researches. The countless treasure maps are usually faked. In many cases to sell them. In some documented cases of the 1930s forged maps were even placed in 19. century navigational books in bookshops. Some joker obviously liked the idea to trigger a treasure hunt that way.
So much to the search situation. Now to the credibility of the story. Of course pirate treasures are the backbone of every treasure book. More precisely, of any book dealing with pirate treasure myths. There are very few published accounts on actual found treasure.
On the other hand I am sure these outlaws cached some of their loot, like every wealthy person living in unstable social circumstances. In my opinion these caches were usually small. Pirates were enganged in a dangerous business and they wanted to enjoy their money while still alive. When they hid money on a remote island there was always the problem to access it when needed. And there was always the risk of not being able to re-find it or somebody else finding it.
Usually caches from all ages are small enough so the owner can hide them without help. If he is member of a crew this must happen without anybody else noticing it which is difficult when so many men live crammed together in such a tight space as a ship of the 16.-18. century. The cliché of the single-eyed pirate captain – a parrot on his shoulder - who is rowed by 10 men and a big treasure chest to an island is a myth. How to deal with these 10 men? Simply killing them was usually not an option. The ordinary pirate was not a slave but a volunteer. The pirates lived according to surprising democratic and modern principles when compared to the ordinary people of these times. They build colonies and partly even had their own constitution, e.g. under Henry Morgan. These rules even asserted compensations for losses endured during battle, e.g. three slaves for a lost arm. Compared to the average sailor who was subject to brutal discipline the pirate enjoyed relative freedom.
To sum it up, Cocos Island is not a promising place to hunt for pirate treasure in my opinion. If there was ever cached something it will be gone today. For those interested in pirate treasure I recommend searching abandoned pirate colonies. Like all ghost towns they offer the prospect of hidden savings. Do not expect monetary values of zillion dollars but hope for a rotten, small chest with some rotten garment, a corroded flintlock pistol or two and some silver.
(C) Thorsten Straub www.metal-detecting.de 2006-2019.