Pirates: My Twenty Months in a Para-naval Group

“Caribbean Sailing Adventure. Treasure-diving cooperative seeks volunteers to crew a sailing ship to the Caribbean to search for sunken treasure. No experience necessary.” Brian Crawford, a 23-year-old hippie in San Diego, couldn’t resist answering this mysterious ad, and found himself in another world. He became a member of the Summerland Pirates, a strange crew of unforgettable characters and misfits, living outside the law and conventions, with a dream of sailing an antique sailing ship to the Caribbean to search for Spanish treasure. With diving and cinema equipment, military vehicles, boats, and weapons, they drove across the continent to Nova Scotia, where they bought an old fishing schooner and set out into the winter North Atlantic. Buffeted by storms and the authorities of two countries, they worked their way down the east coast to Virginia, where a hurricane and near sinking ended Crawford’s adventures, and nearly his life