Kidd’s life on the sea explored Maine man joined quest for ship off Madagascar

The lives of pirates continue to hold a fascination over many people, both young and old.

David Conover admits to being one such person. But as the producer of the Camden-based Compass Light film company, Conover found himself in a position to explore that era on the open seas. The result is “Quest for Captain Kidd,” which will air 9-10 p.m. Sunday on the Discovery Channel.

Conover’s opportunity to become involved with the film came shortly after he had finished filming Hodding Carter’s historical re-creation of Leif Eriksson’s Greenland open boat voyage for PBS’ “Nova.”

“That was very experiential, and brought the whole spirit of Viking life alive for me,” he recalled. “Hodding and I sat down, wondering what I could do next. I thought pirates would be kind of interesting.”

It was then that Conover got a call from Steve Burns at the Discovery Channel. As part of the cable channel’s Expedition Adventure program, Burns agreed to fund Barry Clifford’s expedition to Madagascar in search of the Adventure Galley, the ship of Capt. William Kidd, which was sunk and burned in 1698. In 1984, Clifford led the expedition that found the pirate ship Whydah off Cape Cod, considered the premier finding of its kind. Now Burns was looking for the right filmmaker to record the new expedition.

“He knew of my work, and knew I loved sea stories,” Conover recalled. “He asked me if I wanted to go. I knew a little of Clifford, but I called around to find out more about him. I decided it would be a good thing to do.”

Who is Capt. Kidd? The documentary tries to untangle that 400-year-old mystery. Some historians say he was a Scottish pirate who murdered and plundered his way across the high seas, stashing his gold and jewels in treasure pits from New England to Africa, and ending up publicly hanged on the banks of the Thames in London. Others see him as a misunderstood New York businessman who was trying to make a living at sea, but who was forced to take a political fall for wrongdoing of some British government officials.

To find the remains of Kidd’s ship, Clifford’s expedition took three separate trips during 2000 to the harbor of Sainte-Marie, an island located 20 miles off the coast of Madagascar. Sainte-Marie was a pirate haven in the late 1600s and early 1700s. The first difficulty they faced was the logistics of getting the 44 cases of filmmaking gear, four-member film crew and 15-member archaeological crew and all their equipment to the island, nearly 300 miles from Africa in the Indian Ocean.

The expedition also had to win over the Malagasy natives.

“The local people have a strong belief in ancestor worship,” Conover explained. “Many of them had pirates as ancestors. Also they’re not big on the underwater world, and they even fear it. They consider it the place where their ancestors live. We had to explain really well what we were doing, and they ended up quite supportive.”

With the help of research by historians such as Ken Kinkor, Clifford and company had a pretty good idea of where to start looking in the harbor, thought to be a pirate-ship graveyard. The trained eyes of the expedition members were essential. Where the average diver might see rocks, the company’s divers would recognize ballast piles from a wooden ship.

Clifford’s group soon found such piles, and those, combined with well-preserved gold coins and Chinese porcelain fragments, showed them they were on the right path. Led by chief marine archaeologist John de Bry, the crew used such methods as magnetic imaging and wood analysis to discover not just the Adventure Galley but all of the Fiery (or Flying) Dragon, whose crews captured loot valued at hundreds of millions of today’s dollars during its career. They were only the second and third authenticated pirate ships ever found.

In addition to the film shot on site, Conover also filmed re-enactment scenes of Kidd’s life at sea and his final courtroom battle and subsequent death. All told, about 50 to 60 people worked on the production.

The documentary’s understated narration is provided by Mel Gibson. Writer Paul Perry, an expedition member and friend of Gibson, showed the actor materials about the film, and he expressed an interest in being involved. That was accomplished by working around Gibson’s feature-film shooting schedule.

The long process of excavation continues today. The artifacts found will be placed in a museum to be built on the island. Also Clifford founded Expedition Medical Relief, which worked with regional doctors to distribute needed prescription medicines to the local orphanage and hospital and aid in their administration.

“Quest for Captain Kidd” leaves viewers impressed at the detailed detective work done by the archaeologists in the expedition.

“It was an opportunity to address how these guys with their experience know what they know,” Conover said. “It led us to feel a great appreciation for these guys and their world.”