jacatero:

-This is a true story about the island you see out in the middle of my photograph.-

Edward Teach, the pirate “Blackbeard”  marooned some of his crew that he considered ‘mutinous’ upon a tiny island off the coast of Tortola in the British Virgin Islands. Called ‘The Dead Man’s Chest’ as nothing could live there except lizards, snakes and mosquitoes. Each mutineer was handed a cutlass and a bottle of rum, in the hope that they would kill each other, but a month later when Blackbeard revisited, the fifteen were all still alive. The incident sparked the verse in Stevenson’s ‘Treasure Island’:
Fifteen Men on a dead man’s chest,
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
Drink to the devil had done for the rest,
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
-Terry Breverton, The Pirate Dictionary.

You can buy this print on my site Caught-Outside Photography.