Why haven't I ever been a pirate?

[sillysavage1]

I've two pirates at the moment. One is a 'bad' pirate. Blood thirsty, sadistic, mean, sob. Will kill you just because you were standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. The other, a 'good' pirate. Will rob you blind if possible, but won't take your life. Or hasn't done so yet. That could change.
The problem I have with being a pirate is that its very hard to keep your reputation up. (For other pirates to hear about and possibly join with you anyway) What I mean by this is simply: Larger coastal towns means more recognition and possibly riches. (the word spreads more quickly that they were part of a pirate attack) The draw-back is you have to sail halfway around the world to throw off any pursuers. Once you return, (one particular pirate has on a couple of occasions) most of the people that were in the town you raided, way back when, have moved on or died off. Smaller coastal towns means you manage to kill most of them off. Which in turn gets you little to no recognition and scant few possessions. (you want to leave at least one survivor to pass the word that they were the only one standing after the viscous raid that left everyone else dead)
I guess what I'm trying to get to is this: Its hard to be the scourge of the seven seas when no one has heard of your pirate. And harder to stay alive when you happen to run into the people that your pirate attacked! So I'm still trying to figure out a happy medium to this and keep my pirates alive and not in Davey Jones locker. Arrrrgh...
As for a 'Pirate Island'... Most players I've encountered throughout my ten years of rp'ing are just to damn paranoid to trust another pirate. But hey! One can always keep trying.