When the pirate got paid on the island of Corfu

Kári Gíslason was 18 when he met a mysterious stranger called 'the Pirate' on the Greek island of Corfu. When he fled the island, he left behind a debt he promised to one day repay.

When Kári Gíslason was 18, he came to the island of Corfu as a stony-broke traveller. 

But he quickly found work in a little town: lime washing walls and working as a builder’s labourer.

The man who gave him the work was a mysterious figure known simply as ’the Pirate’.

At first, Kári thought it was a nickname given to him as a comic exaggeration of his former life as a ship’s cook.

But he received warnings from several people to get away from the Pirate.

And when the Pirate said he wanted Kári to sail with him across the Atlantic to deliver unnamed goods to Brazil, Kári began to plot his escape.