"We're really excited," says DMNS public relations manager Heather Hope, who dismissed rumors that the museum was keeping the exhibit under wraps until an official announcement. "We just haven't done a lot to publicize it or emphasize it yet because we've got a lot of other stuff going on." Which is not nearly as exciting as it was to think that perhaps the DMNS had written out a press release in invisible ink and hidden it in a trunk buried under two palm trees coincidentally grown in the shape of an X on some obscure tropical island -- but it's pragmatic, I guess. Hope said the museum intends to start the PR push around December.
The exhibit itself, Real Pirates: The Untold Story of the Whydah From Slave Ship to Pirate Ship, showcases a slave ship commandeered by pirates in the early 1700s, which later sank in a storm off the coast of Cape Cod with most of its crew -- and its booty -- aboard. In the '80s, researchers located the ship, making it "the first fully authenticated pirate ship ever to be discovered in U.S. waters," says Hope.
Among the artifacts recovered are treasure chests full of gold, cannons, weaponry, jewels and Johnny Depp. Keep yourself posted on Show and Tell as we find out more.
Arrrr.