Why did the Pirates wear eye patches

Believe it or not – Pirates didn't wear eye patches because their eyes were missing.

Yes, you read that one right now!

Those trademark pirate eye patches are nothing to do with the missing eye, but to see better in the dark.

With two eyes, wouldn't they see better?

Okay, now stay with me for this one — when you're moving from a bright, well-lit area to a dark area, your eyes take some time to adjust to the darkness.

This is called dark adaptation, which can take up to 25 minutes to occur when moving from extreme light to extreme darkness.

So how is it going to help pirates?

Pirates would often move above and below the decks, so that one eye would be constantly dark-adapted by wearing an eye patch.

This suggests that when they moved under boards, they could just adjust their eye-patch, which would render their eyes much safer in the dark than someone with no eye-patch and no dark-fitting head.

Well, try it for yourself.

If you don't trust me, when you go home later, turn off the lights in one room of your house and cover one eye with your hand while you're in a light room.

Go into the dark room, uncover your eye, and you'll see how much difference this will make compared to just walking into a dark room from a light one normally.

So you've got it there. All these years, you've been caught in thinking pirates were blind in one eye.

When you think about it now, I mean, what are the odds that so many pirates are all blind in one eye?