If even half the tales about Captain Kidd’s buried treasure are true, it’s a wonder he had time to plunder so many 18th-century merchant ships from Long Island Sound to the Caribbean, what with all that digging.

The notorious privateer-turned-pirate is rumored to have squirreled away chests stuffed with jewels and doubloons all along the Connecticut and New York coastlines.

Every so often, when visiting one of his legendary haunts, I turn over a rock and kick away sand, but so far have only found 37 cents and a ring from a Cracker Jack box.

Anyway, I almost had another chance to hit the jackpot the other day when friends and I kayaked out to the Thimble Islands off Branford, often mentioned as one of Kidd’s favorite hangouts.

Truth be told, I had no intention of digging.

First of all, only one of the Thimbles is open to the public, Outer Island, which is part of the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge. I imagine hacking away with picks and shovels there is almost as serious an infraction as trampling a piping plover’s nest.

Also, the weather had turned during our excursion. When Dan Bendor, Carl Astor, Phil Plouffe and I launched that morning from a public ramp at the village of Stony Creek, we enjoyed light wind and calm seas. Instead of heading directly offshore to the Thimbles, we steered west along the coast to take advantage of a flood tide that was about to ebb.

By the time we turned around several miles later, though, rain began falling and a gusty wind kicked up whitecaps. We scurried into the lee of the westernmost Thimble, Rogers Island, and then meandered among a dozen or so other islands with intriguing names: Ghost Island, Cut-in-Two Island East, Cut-in-Two Island West, East Crib Island, West Crib Island, Potato Island, Little Pumpkin Island, East Stooping Bush Island, Hen Island and Mother-in-Law Island.

Had the weather been more favorable, we could have continued south to Outer Island while passing Kidd Island and Money Island.

Dan, Carl and I have paddled through the Thimbles many times; Phil was making his making his maiden voyage.

“I’ll be back,” he promised.

Depending on varying interpretations of what distinguishes an island from a tiny rock barely visible at high tide, there are between 100 and 365 Thimbles, ranging in size from a few square feet to 17-acre Horse Island, which Yale University maintains as an ecological laboratory through its Peabody Museum of Natural History.

Only 23 of the Thimbles are inhabited, some with only one house and others with multiple dwellings, bringing the total number of residences to 81. Many are small cottages built on stilts; others are connected by wooden footbridges, and some are eye-popping manors, such as the sprawling, 27-room Tudor mansion with tennis and basketball courts on Rogers Island.

Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau and his wife, TV journalist Jane Pauley, own a home in the Thimbles; President William Howard Taft established his Summer White House on Davis Island after taking office in 1909; General Tom Thumb lived on Cut-in-Two Island East in the 1800s when not traveling with P.T. Barnum’s circus.

The Thimbles — named for the thimbleberry, a type of blackberry — are distinctive not just for their architecture, celebrated residents and possible connection to piracy, but also because of their geology.

The islands are composed of a high-quality, pink-orange rock called Stony Creek granite, remnants of the last ice age some 18,000 years ago.

A quarry from Bear Island in the Thimbles supplied granite for the Lincoln Memorial, Grant’s Tomb, and the base of the Statue of Liberty. A mainland quarry not far from the Thimbles provided rock for the Brooklyn Bridge, Grand Central Station and Columbia University.

We kept a sharp lookout for semi-submerged reefs and outcrops while navigating through shallow water. Pirates relied on such navigational hazards to help them avoid capture.

Kidd, meanwhile, would have been better off if he stayed in the Thimbles and other hideouts, including Charles Island off Milford, and Gardiners Island off Long Island, instead of continuing to terrorize the oceans.

He was captured off Boston in 1699 and shipped back to England, where he was tried and convicted of piracy.

Kidd was hanged on May 23, 1701; his body was left to rot in a cage along the River Thames, as a reminder to other brigands of the penalty they faced.

While we didn’t uncover any of his buried treasure, kayaking among the Thimbles’ elegant splendor was ample reward.

Still, it would have been nice to stumble upon a piece of eight, or at least a bottle of rum.

The Stony Creek boat ramp is on Thimble Island Road in Branford. Take Exit 56 on I-95, and follow Leetes Island Road to Thimble Island Road.

The village, ramp and harbor are typically crowded on summer weekends, but this time of year, in the right conditions, is an ideal time to visit.