Port Royal - Jamaica

Back in the 1600's, Jamaica's Port Royal was kind of like the Las Vegas of the Caribbean-- but even crazier. The seaside city had all kinds of exotic goods being traded around, notorious buccaneers walked freely, and everyone was swilling grog and rum nonstop-- according to some, one out of every four buildings was either a bar or a brothel. Sounds like a fun place to visit, right? Who wouldn't want to party with a pirate? Well, maybe not anymore... this 17th-century Sodom met a disastrous end befitting its wild reputation. There's a reason that port towns like Port Royal have had reputations for being lawless-- for starters, they were frequented by rowdy pirates and rich merchants dealing in sugar and slaves. When the British captured Jamaica from the Spanish, they made Kingston, a city only 15 odd miles from Port Royal, the capital, and Port Royal soon became an important center of commerce in the Americas.  At its peak, 6,500 people were packed into the town, which had about 2,000 tall brick buildings-- probably not the best choice of structure to build on a sandy spit of land, but hindsight is 20/20 I suppose. The wealthy town boasted four goldsmiths, and the residents were rich enough to use coins as money. As for the town's infamous carousing, there was, for a time, one drinking house per every ten residents of the city, and enough privateers and prostitutes to fill them all.  Whether it was the hand of God or just a coincidence, on June 7th of 1962, at approximately 11:43 a.m., an earthquake struck the island of Jamaica, rattling the town of Port Royal hard. In fact, a whole 2/3 of the city slipped underwater in a matter of minutes as the sandy ground below the town's heavy buildings essentially liquified. Port Royal never truly recovered-- its rebuilding was repeatedly hindered by fires, hurricanes, epidemics, and more earthquakes, and Kingston simply took over as the economic center of the Caribbean.  Archaeological excavations have found that the underwater city has been kept in excellent condition-- apart from the whole "being underwater" thing-- and have studied it as a pristine example of life in the Caribbean in the 17th century. It's even been compared to a submerged Pompeii. Port Royal today is a small fishing village that draws in some tourists who are interested in its notorious history. While you need a special permit to dive to the sunken city, you can visit the Giddy House, built in the 1880's, which is most famous for being tipped at a precarious angle thanks to another earthquake, or look out at the watery grave of one of history's most legendary cities.