The Pirate Sword of Kice Island

Within the beautiful and elegant surroundings on Marco Island, it can be hard to imagine that only a few miles to the south are the Ten Thousand Islands and a mangrove archipelago so dense, dark, and untouched that even in the 21st century mysteries from the past can reach out and capture the present. 

Our chronicle this week begins with a discovery that cannot fail to inspire the imagination. Recently a stranger appeared at the docks at a popular marina on Marco. He was carrying a box that was clearly important because he was holding it with aobvious reverence. The box was cardboard and nothing special, but when he approached a group of Marco Island charter captains at a fish cleaning station, he was clearly a man on a mission. 

“Does anyone know anything about Kice Island?” The man with the box began. “The big coastal Island just to the south of Marco?” 

After the question, curiosity won the day and the group of captains gathered closer. 

“Big white beaches and mangroves,” was the first answer but everyone was eyeing the box. 

The man nodded but he was not ready to share—not just yet. Another captain spoke up. “I can tell you about an artesian well somewhere deep in the mangroves. It’s like a black pond in a mangrove tunnel, but there are snakes everywhere. That’s one dark and spooky place.” 

Everyone nodded and agreed they had all heard the story of the artesian well where fresh water was pouring out of a mineral cone and the streaming water once might have been a dredge pipe, and yes, those who have went searching and found the lagoon also found enough snakes to film an Indiana Jones movie. 

An older captain spoke up. “Somewhere on that island is a bulldozer from the 1960s. I heard the surveyors left it out there after the developers abandoned the island. Lots of overgrown trails, but huge banana spiders everywhere.” 

“A few years ago, a group of pilot whales landed there and died but no one knows why. Scientists came to study what happened, but the skeletons of those whales were all over where the black mangrove roots reach into the water.” 

“They found old bottles on that island. Real old. Clam bullion bottles from the Burnham Clam Factory on Marco. That clam outfit was thriving a hundred years ago but it caught fire and burned down. They also found older bottles from the first settlers. One bottle was Doctor Pierce’s Golden Remedy. That was from 1898. It was sky blue. Someone found it after a storm. A perfect bottle that looked brand new. It must have been under the sand for a hundred years. It was a feel good tonic made with opium and alcohol.” 

The stranger was clearly interested in all the stories, but he was not ready to open the box. 

“What about things that happened before that. Before the 1800s? Does anyone know anything about the really old stuff?” 

One of the captains laughed. “I heard Ponce Deleon was looking for the fountain of youth on Marco. That was in the 1500s. He thought he found the fountain of youth—and maybe he was right.” The captain laughed again but there were more than a few nods of agreement. 

“I’m actually thinking about pirate stuff.” After he spoke, the stranger placed the cardboard box on the fish-cutting table and took off the lid. Resting inside the box were the remains of what looked to be a pirate cutlass from the 1700s. The short sword was very rusty, and if a cutlass could have become a rusting skeleton of a former weapon of a buccaneer, the relic that was resting in the cardboard box was it.  

No one spoke until the stranger reached and lifted the cutlass by the remains of the handguard and grip and began turning the rusting blade in the sunlight. I found this on Kice Island where my kids call it the Creepy Old Beach. The place where the stinky seashell piles are deep and the roots of the mangroves are dead and turning to driftwood. 

One of the captains laughed again. “Other than the big white beaches, most of that island is creepy. Especially where the big spiders live next to the shell piles and the driftwood in the water.” 

“Everyone says the pirates were real.” A fishing guide confirmed. “It was Calico Jack and the women pirates. Ann Bonny and Mary Reid. The stories tell that they were using Marco as a hideout because there was fresh water and high ground to weather storms and stash treasure. There is an old tale that a Spanish treasure ship is lost deep under the Marriott beach. It was a treasure galleon shipwrecked by a hurricane and found by Calico Jack and his girl pirates. The treasure onboard was a hundred thousand Mexican silver pesos and that silver is still out there somewhere. Many of the older islanders say there’s Spanish treasure on Kice Island too. Maybe that cutlass is like the snake oil tonic bottle that was under the sand for a hundred years. Who knows what else is waiting out there?” 

When the stranger left with box and his pirate sword from Kice Island, the marina was awash for days with tales of lost treasure and pirate stories until the stranger came back and told everyone that a historian did some research and found that the skeleton sword came from Hong Kong in the early 1960s. It was a rusted steel toy for children who wanted to play buccaneers and pirates but the stories and tales surrounding the mysteries of Kice Island and the other islands to the south are very real.