Expedition to ‘real home of the pirates of the Caribbean’ hopes to unearth ships and treasure

Engraving of Henry Avery, English pirateer taking one of the great mogul's ships in the 17th century. Photograph: Pictorial Press/Alamy

Pirates of the Caribbean is a $4.5bn swashbuckling film franchise and Blackbeard and Calico Jack Rackham are among marauding buccaneers who have captured imaginations over the centuries.

But almost nothing is known about the life and times of actual pirates.