Grand Bahama Island is a curious hybrid of pastel-painted toy-town architecture, great wastes of mangrove forests, and highways with romantic names like Doubloon Road, Spanish Main Drive, and Midshipman Road. These conjure a piratical past that comes disquietingly to life when the tattered skull-and-crossbone standards of old galleons can be glimpsed through those banyans. In fact, these are the props for the continuing saga of Pirates of the Caribbean—now filming parts II and III—and the broken masts belong to The Black Pearl, The Empress, and The Flying Dutchman, hulking ships out of fairy tales conceived by a febrile team of Disney "imagineers."

On a balmy March morning, Keira Knightley, the 21-year-old heroine of these swashbuckling romps, is recovering from the movie wrap party the night before, which she describes as "a thank-you to the island for putting up with us all this time!" and during which she made "a rousing, Joan of Arc-esque speech" that she was delighted to observe brought tears to the eyes of at least one hardened crewman. However, Knightley "bailed early"; the shooting schedule has been a grueling one. The episodic Pirates movies have now been in production for more than a year—long enough for Knightley to have laid down roots in a charming lilac-and-ocher shack with a deep-aqua veranda that commands dramatic views across the peroxide sand to the bright-blue Caribbean.

"Keira Royale" has been edited for Style.com; the complete story appears in the May 2006 issue of Vogue.

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