ROBERT KURSON

So many of the pleasures of recreational scuba diving don't exist for the deep wreck diver. It's not beautiful scenery for the most part; in fact, it's usually very dark. It's physically burdensome. These guys carry almost two hundred pounds of equipment, and should any of that equipment fail, they risk death.

Real pirates were better than in movies, more daring and terrifying and cunning than any screenwriter could imagine. They operated during the Golden Age of Piracy, from 1650 to 1720.

I have two parents who are brilliant storytellers. The art of developing a story and nurturing a story was present in my household from the day I was born.

I have been interested in pirates since I was about 8 years old. The idea of people deciding, sometimes at a moment's notice, to throw over the rules and restrictions of society - it was just irresistible.

Pirates worked to avoid violence and fighting.

Pirates almost never sailed with women. Just four or five are known to have worked as pirates during the Golden Age. Two of them - Mary Read and Anne Bonny - became famous, dressing as men and fighting alongside one of the most celebrated of all pirate captains, 'Calico' Jack Rackham.

For my new book 'Pirate Hunters', I follow John Chatterton and John Mattera, two world-class scuba divers, who teach themselves to think and act as pirates while searching for what would be only the second pirate ship ever found and positively identified.

I love nonfiction the most. It's hard to find a good nonfiction story, and that's why I'm not as prolific, I guess, as a lot of people. They're hard to find. I love the nonfiction writer Ben Macintyre. I think he's terrific at the form of telling a story in a cinematic way.

It's never too late in life to have a genuine adventure.

Port Royal, Jamaica, was built for pirates. The town had a well-protected harbor, corrupt politicians and townsfolk, and a set of ethics that seemed passed down from Sodom and Gomorrah.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that pirates did wear eye patches and have peg legs and have brightly colored beads. I never knew what the beads were for. They really were for frightening and terrifying their prey.

I read almost exclusively nonfiction when I read, because even though it's harder to find a great true story, when you find one, the idea that it actually happened is immensely powerful.That's what moves me the most.

I had an advantage over a lot of people who had gone to school and earned degrees in writing and had learned the rules for writing, so to speak. My style was just to tell a story but to tell it well, and that has worked out for me so far.

I think that pirates represent every person's ability to get up and leave their current daily situation and go on an adventure, and maybe to see things and do things they've never done before or even dreamed of doing.

A century before the concept took hold in America, pirate ships were democracies. Most captains were elected by crew and could be voted out anytime.

Violence, as it is for the mafia and most other criminal organizations, was bad for pirate business. By doing battle with prey, pirates risked damage to their own ships and injury to their crews. It also made them bigger targets for law enforcement.

Pirate ships were built for stealth and invisibility. They filed no manifests with any agency or government. When they went missing or sunk, nobody went looking for them. They simply disappeared into the ether.

John Chatterton is the kind of person who always seems to be up to some kind of incredible adventure.

More than reading - much more than reading, in fact - I developed a love for telling stories from listening to two parents who really knew how to do it. And it really is an art.

I think it's strange for people to read about themselves, no matter what's portrayed or how it's portrayed. But they get used to it, and I think they're fine with it.

Piracy was risky business, and injuries were commonplace; a single lost limb or gouged-out eye could end a pirate's career. To encourage pirates not to hesitate in battle - and out of a sense of fairness - many pirate crews compensated wounded crewmen in predetermined amounts.

Once you discover that real pirates are more interesting than fictional ones, you can't look away.

The more I learned about real pirates, the more exciting they seemed to me. They appeared to be even more dramatic than pirates of the movies or TV shows.

There is pressure when you have a very big book like 'Shadow Divers' to follow up with something big. But you can't let that pressure determine what you do. You just look for the best stories, and when you find a great one, you tell it.

Pirates did not store all their treasures in treasure chests, then bury them and draw maps to them. That's a movie invention. In reality, pirates spent their money as fast as they could steal it because they knew they were living on borrowed time. They didn't want to wait around to enjoy the money.