Madagascar's pirate island — humpback whale nursery and 17th-century pirate graveyard
Île Sainte-Marie (Nosy Boraha in Malagasy) is a 57km-long island off Madagascar's northeast coast, separated from the main island by a shallow lagoon. It was the pirate capital of the Indian Ocean in the late 17th century — over 1,000 pirates based here between 1690 and 1730, preying on the spice and slave trade routes. The pirate graveyard at the southern tip still holds tombstones with skull-and-crossbones. Today the island is one of the world's great whale-watching destinations: humpback whales use the warm lagoon as a nursery from July to September, giving birth and nursing calves in wate…
Nosy Boraha was a strategic waypoint for Indian Ocean trade for centuries before European contact. French missionaries arrived in 1641, but the island became most famous as a pirate republic in the 1690s — captains including William Kidd, Thomas Tew, and the fictional Long John Silver's inspiration all used the harbour. Libertalia, the semi-legendary anarchist pirate utopia, is said to have been established nearby. France formally colonised the island in 1750 and held it until Madagascar's independence in 1960. The pirate legacy is genuine — the graveyard outside the church of Saint-Marie hol…