Between Vijaydurg and the Sidhi Janjira lie four other forts: Kanakdurga and Suvarnadurga, both translatable as Golden Fort, the former a shore fort and the latter a very picturesque island fort only 20 miles from Sidhi territory, with the smaller Gopalgad or Aanjanwel and Bankot-Himmatgad in between. Gopalgad, once an embarkation point for Mecca, is now very dilapidated, and Bankot suffered, too, in the British occupation of 1790, when it was renamed Fort Victoria. Suvarnadurg was the home base of the renowned Kanhoji Angria who, like his father before him, served the Marathas. He had been born there and had grown up among the Koli sailors, learning their lore, learning their seamanship, but he was made second-in-command of the Maratha navy for his success in a land engagement. 

Suvarnadurg was attacked by the Sidhis; Kanhoji, captured during a sortie, later managed to escape and successfully took command of the fort's defence. He rose to full command of the Maratha navy in 1698 after the death of Shivaji and patrolled the coast so effectively that the run between Goa and Bombay became a veritable gauntlet for other shipping. In coastal waters, the smaller Maratha vessels had some advantage over the East Indiamen: they could slip into shallow creeks to avoid the Britishers' heavy guns and if ever the larger vessels were becalmed, the galbats and ghurabs could be rowed out under cover of darkness towards the stern of the enemy, thus avoiding any danger of a broadside, and discharge their own prow or broadside three- or nine-pounders at close range. 

Once the British guns were out of action, more ghurabs could come up with boarding parties. In this way Kanhoji took the Otter, the Robert and the Success and blew up several other ships, quite enough for the British in Bombay to deem him not just a nuisance but a pirate, and to stir forth to bring him down. They found it hard enough, failing, even acting with their Portuguese trading rivals, either to capture Vijaydurg or to blockade it. The Dutch fared no better, and Kanhoji's son continued to harry the Europeans until the 1750s, when dissension among the Marathas destroyed their independent strength. 

In 1756 the Angria fleet was wrecked at Vijaydurg by British fire and the Maratha Peshwa entered into an alliance. Devgad; Sindhudurga, the fort built by Shivaji where his statue stands, and re-named Fort Augustus by the British; Terekhol; Fort Aguada in Goa, now a spectacular Taj hotel; and Sadishivgad in time all these fighting forts were neutralised, and today the village fishing fleets jostle in and out of their palm-grown ports, intent only on capturing the sea's bounty or to visit their neighbours up and down the coast.