I just arrived home today; back from two weeks on the Outer Banks Islands of North Carolina, haunts of many a long dead pirate, including Blackbeard. On my way home yesterday I stopped at the museum of history in Raleigh to see the "Knights of the Black Flag" exhibit, which included artifacts brought up from a shipwreck off the coast of Beaufort, NC, which was believed to be the Queen Anne's Revenge; Blackbeard's flagship. For seven years they've been trying to prove this wreck is the last remains of the ship sailed by the most notorious pirate in history; a pirate whose exploits inspired me to begin writing stories of adventures on the high seas. It's been about seven years or so since they found the wreck, and they've been hauling artifacts out of the sea ever since; meticulously cleaning and preserving things like cannons and pewter plates, bits of gold, and a lead pissoir. Earlier this year I went to see the collection of artifacts from the Whydah; Black Sam Bellamy's ship, and that collection was larger and more impressive. Until I heard a bit of news. I stood chatting with a volunteer who was setting up a demonstrational table for the good people who had come to see the exhibit. The man told me he had just been talking with a professor at Eastern Carolina University, one of the people who are investigating the "QAR Project", and this professor had told him, just fifteen minutes before, they had authenticated the wreck off Beaufort Inlet as THE Queen Anne's Revenge. This may not be significant to many, but to followers of the pirates of the Golden Age of Piracy, this is something just shy of finding the Holy Grail. It was truly an "Oh wow" moment.