Noah, 4, has a love for pirates and is always on the lookout for them. He spends his days hiding small plastic gems around the house and everyone has to find them. He’s a sucker for making treasure maps and his imagination is beautiful to watch. So I decided to make a treasure chest for him to discover at the beach. Slight of hand aided in bringing a magical adventure to life…
Before we set out I found an old box and filled it with beach-combed loot: shells and sea glass along with coins and plastic decorative gems. I even found a ship and shells in a bottle for a few pound in a souvenir shop by the sea front in Ilfracombe.
Mr FD took the kids to get an ice cream whilst I popped a message into a bottle and used some chalk pens to decorate our pirates treasure chest before hiding it in a bag and heading onto the beach…
Our first sign of pirates was discovered lying in the sand….A pirates mask!
Along with the discovery of oodles of pirate rings…. (Limpet shells)
Whilst the fished about in the rock pools i lay the message in a bottle to be discovered.
And then he found it!!! HE WAS SOOOO EXCITED!
The map inside told us to search for the X that marked the spot…
Whilst they searched the beach I hung back and buried the treasure chest behind the beach tent and marked it with an X….
I placed a couple more Xs further away to divert them to buy me some time as they dug for treasure under the fake Xs…
Then they found the right spot and soon were uncovering the loot!
It seemed the pirates had left something for everyone 🙂
We even had a teeny weeny pirate ship in a bottle…
But the best treasures of all were the faces and excitement of the little ones that truly believed in our pirates adventure and will treasure the loot from the day we went to the beach and found a real pirates message in a bottle ……that’s the magic that will last forever.
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