But two years hence, the ships dropping anchor in Port Royal are expected to be modern cruise liners. The visitors looking for excitement will be tourists. The pirates they encounter will be actors. The wicked city will have become a Disney-style theme park.

Construction is scheduled to begin on the $50 million renovation in Port Royal later this year, after five years of planning. The opening is scheduled for June 2000, and Jamaica has high hopes for the southeastern outpost near the capital of Kingston, which has not benefited from a tourism boom on the Caribbean island's north coast. For starters, we expect to bring in 5,000 passengers a week, which would bring the country about $ 500,000 weekly,'' says RobertStephens, chairman of the Port Royal development company.

By the fifth year, we will be looking for 25,000 passengers a week, which would be $ 2.5 million. That would mean a lot for Jamaica.'' It would also bring back some of the prosperity that Port Royal experienced in the days when it was controlled by lawless pirates who came to town for some free-spending fun. One account tells of a pirate paying 500 pieces of eight (the Spanish pirate-era currency) just to watch a woman strip off her clothes.

In his epic ``Caribbean,'' Michener describes Port Royal as having no restraints of any kind, and the soldiers stationed in the fort seemed as undisciplined as the pirates who roared ashore to take over the place, night after night. They were of all breeds, all with nefarious occupations. In some hectic months, Port Royal averaged a dozen killings a night, and prominent on the waterfront was a rude gallows from whose yardarm (hung) the corpse of some pirate who had attacked the wrong ship at the wrongtime.''

Earthquakes destroyed much of Port Royal in 1692 and 1907, and part of the city slid into the sea. The ancient gods must have grown disgusted with the debauchery of the buccaneers who made our town a cesspool,'' concluded a survivor in ``Caribbean.''

Today, little is left but dilapidated buildings, battered roads, high unemployment and nothing to attract visitors except a few restaurants offering lobsters and shrimp.

Jamaica's government is renovating some of the historic buildings and private companies are paying for the theme park, which Stephens says will give people many reasons to visit.