About this episode
Gabby Querrard and Paulina Creque of the podcast Caribbean Mystics join Jack on Patreon to discuss local paranormal stories from their home, the Virgin Islands, and the Caribbean region as a whole. Paulina also discusses her family's own incredible backstory, which involves lost treasure, gold doubloons, ghost visitations, haunted roads, and mysterious graveyard rituals. As if that weren't enough, she also surprised me in this episode by revealing that her family once owned a "little" island that was later sold to a certain infamous billionaire.
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Otherworld — Island Lore with Caribbean Mystics [Patreon Preview]. Machine-transcribed; use the interactive transcript above to jump the player to any line.
We've gotten in some dark themes. That was my fault, though. That was my fault. That's it? I'm sure they're not all like that. No, we have so many other acting stories. There's got to be some... There's got to be some... Are there some about singing ghostly pirates or something? You've got green glowing pirates, you know, drinking, hanging from street poles, lanterns, things like that, terrorizing a town. I wish we had some good pirate stories. I was just going to say we actually have never gotten pirate stories. That's actually amazing. Yeah. The closest one we've gotten, I think is what's hurting. I was going to say your people's story. Oh, yeah. I was going to say, I was about to say that, like that Paulina, at one point on one of our calls, started telling me the lore of your own family and it was just completely insane. I was like 20 minutes into this story and I was just like, wait, what? Paulina is really... He's like gold and curses and like...
Yeah. And also it gave me a sense of how interconnected everybody is on these islands. I don't know. Do we want to get into this? Is this too complicated? No, we should. I actually really want her to tell you guys about the grave. Okay. But just to preface it, to get you guys really settled in, Paulina's family has one of the most notorious lords in Virgin Island's history. It is a lore that encompasses a bloodline. It encompasses multiple places on multiple islands and it is just so vast and so rich. And part of the reason why is because there is an ambiguity to it. Anyway, I'll leave Paulina. Go ahead. You guys settle in. Oh, this pressure. I... So, I never know where to begin the story because it's like a... It's like a tangle where they all intertwine. It's like a... This family tree and it just spreads and spreads. So I guess it all started with my great, great, great, great grandfather.
And he used to be like a fisherman. And I believe he was from Antigota and the way like they would fish and then he would also find sailboats that were destroyed and repurpose them to make money with his father. So one day he's fishing out by the BVI next to an island called Norman Island, today Norman Island. And a huge storm came and he needed to find shelter. So in front of him were these three caves and he went into the middle one. I believe it was the middle one to seek shelter there. And as he's waiting for the rain to stop, he notices something towards the roof of the cave, like towards the ceiling. And it's like glinting in the lights. So he climbs up the cave and apparently the legend goes he found a treasure chest, like pirates, Spanish de blooms, gold and brought it back with him.
But the loot was too big that he ended up burying some of it on the island itself and bringing it back. Now nobody knows for sure if this is true or not, but something strange happened when he returned. He suddenly had this enormous wealth and he ended up buying that island, Norman Island and moved to St. Thomas and bought property downtown in waterfront. He ended up buying little St. James, which a lot of us know today as a student island. Yes. I've been trying not to make a little St. James joke this entire day. Your family owned little St. James? Yes. They actually ended up selling it in the 90s, I believe. I'm trying to remember or was that Norman Island? I can't remember, but just so you know, like the creaky estate, like it's a large family. My grandfather had like eight children.
So they all had to vote and most of them just wanted the money. So they sold Norman Island in the 90s to this lawyer or this doctor. And then I forgot who sold little St. James. It might have been my great grandmother. No, it was more recent because the second owner sold it to Epstein and made a huge process. Okay. They're like, look, what's the worst that could happen from selling the soft? Dude, I know. We could go into that too, but just to stay on track. They didn't sell it directly to him. So that's a little bit better. They didn't. I know. I was like, the guy that's going in real quick, like, oh, Polly, no, no. Polly, you guys could buy it back now, probably in the cheap if somebody's done something old. No, no. If we could just round up all the creakies, get you guys on a big ship together. Just take back one of these islands by force. Love it. Take back little St. James. Island style. Old, the old way pirate style.
Just take it back. How many people could really be on that island right now, like two to three security guards? Yeah. You could run them off and take it over. The island is so cursed now. And it's very close to St. Thomas. You could literally swim there if you really want to challenge yourself from waterfront. But what's so creepy about that island is we grew up calling it pedophile island. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Not knowing why we called it that. It was just like a strange, we don't know who started it where it came from. But you know, I was like in middle school. I would be like, oh, there's pedophile island. And I actually went to a birthday party on that island at 14. What? Yes. Yes, because I believe the girl who's birthday was her parents were one of like the caretakers of the island. I can't specify. I can't say what job her parents did because everybody will know who it is.
It's exactly you're talking about. Yes. So yeah, I can't say because hyperlocal tea. And then the other thing I was wanting people to understand because they're always like, how come you guys didn't do anything? Like it was obviously an outward known secret, right? And the problem is is that when you are a community that is under the American umbrella, and you are essentially living in a modern day colony, we don't have voting representative of Congress, we cannot get FEMA money or financial assistance if we are not at the best of the powers that be. And so as people that are largely powerless in their communities as it relates to US Hedgemoni, it does not make sense to go up against somebody like Jeffrey Epstein who is very well connected and multiple arenas. And that's not to take away the responsibility that I think some of our local leaders subverted when they leaned in to his spare of influence, but it's also to acknowledge that like I
feel like sometimes people perceive us to being like morally corrupt or like, you know, like there's so much. As an American, I will say that I don't think I've ever heard of a single person thinking that the Virgin Islands or the people of the Virgin Islands are to blame for the deeds of the people. Look at those comments. Really? Yes. They're so despicable. Why didn't the locals do something? Why didn't they? What were you guys going to do? I don't know. Exactly. Get the creakies on a boat to overthrow the swords. I have to give this caveat because the comment section is really be ripping us up. Yeah.
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