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Inquisitor!
Inquisitor is always the answer.
It's got skills, it's got spells, it's got medium BAB but class features to support attack and damage.
It works better as an archer than as a melee character, but it can still do melee fine. Pick up a weapon you can wield in two hands (most but not all one-handed weapons can be used in two-hands for the increased scaling on power attack and strength to damage) with power attack and you're good to go.
Warpriest is another good option too, lets skills though. And the spell list isn't as good for a melee character IMO.
Both however get divine favor/power which is the biggest spell you're after.
An inquisitor or warpriest is easier to have on the front lines than a cleric or oracle - though those are certainly possible. The warpriest is better at healing, the inquisitor better at support. Bards can fight too and are about perfect for support, iffy but not impossible on healing. Shamans are similar to clerics & oracles.
If you want to make a cleric fight on the front lines one way is to grab a reach weapon so that you can still take AoOs on rounds when you're busy casting spells with your standard action. Reach tactics can include tripping.
Battle oracles can be slightly better than clerics at the actual fighting. Healing all the weird statuses is easier for a prepared caster than a spontaneous one tho'.
Occultists - note the trappings of the warrior panoply and get it by level 6 at latest. They're kind of fiddly to play - clerics and oracles are easier - but full BAB and being able to pull out any weapon enchantment you like at the drop of a hat has a lot going for it. They won't be good healers at all, worse than any other class I've named above.
Edit: inquisitors and warpriests hit as hard as anybody with their buffs up. Harder than a mere fighter. Once the buffs are gone, not so much.
Every caster except Psychic, Investigator*, Mesmerist**, Antipaladin, Medium, and Speaker of the Palatine Eye Bard can use CLW wands and/or IH wands.
Every partial caster (and divine full caster) can be used in melee.
I'm not sure what kind of support you have in mind, and in any case what's good there depends on the party.
For an active in-fight supporter, Bard, Skald, and Summoner (where the Eidolon would do the melee part) jump to mind. Alchemist, Inquisitor, Magus, Warpriest, Investigator, and Occultist all are/can be good when it comes to melee damage. Summoner, Hunter and Spiritualist are mostly pet-based (unless changed by an archetype). The three full divine casters are comparatively casting centric and thus shine especially when they can prepare for combat, as well as out-of-combat porblem solving. Summoner, Magus, Oracle, and Shaman are a bit weak on the skill side, and Cleric and Warpriest are outright bad at that.
*) Unless Questioner or Jinyiwei
**) Unless Fey Trickster
Inquisitors would probably be better for a pirate campaign. Both the warpriest and inquisitor would work well in combat and for healing. The big advantage of the inquisitor is out of combat utility. Getting 6 skill points per level and a good class skill list means they can be useful outside combat. They also have other abilities that are useful for more than just combat. No one is better at getting information out of a reluctant target than an inquisitor, and they are tough to fool.
@Mysterious Stranger Hmm.. That is a good point! Having skill points is awesome, Not having them is sad.. Inquisitors seem very useful. =)
That is why Inquisitor is usually my go to suggestion for just about anything.
It's really one of the best all around classes there is.
The only pain point is that they don't have access to all martial weapons, but there are remedies for that.
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One good way to make a healer that is good in melee is to make a 9th lvl divine caster with high strength using a longspear, and take Combat Reflexes. A 14 is fine for your casting stat.
One option I particularly like is the Speaker for the Past Shaman Archetype. which gives access to Revelations from the Time and Ancestor Oracles Mysteries, among other things. If you want to be better at knowledge skills, the Knowledge of the Ages Revelation (Time) can help:
You can search through time to recall some bit of forgotten lore or information. You can retry any Knowledge skill check you have made within the past minute, gaining an insight bonus on the check equal to yourCharisma[Wisdom for a Speaker for the Past] modifier. You can use this ability a number times per day equal to yourCharisma[Wisdom for a Speaker for the Past] modifier.
A high strength Speaker for the Past Shaman with the Battle Spirit would be my choice, but be aware that you have to reference spells and abilities from different classes, so it can take some work to get your head around it. In addition to the Shaman spell list, you add the Mystery Spells from the Ancestor and Time Oracle Mysteries to your spell list. In the end, you get Heroism (Ancestor Mystery spell) and Haste (Time Speed or Slow Time Revelation), and a full selection of healing spells. Be a human or half-orc, and you can use your favored class bonus to poach spells off the cleric list (like Blessing of Fervor).
Lots of good advice.
The nice thing about the inquisitor is that can always do something. Which is a good metric for deciding on a pc. It can also swap out teamwork feats which can be useful on the fly. Or in theory anyways.
Which god...Besmara...Gorum?
No one mentioned Druids. Tiger pounce...or twin tiger pounce if you have pet. Heals relatively well, good saves, 4 skill points with good class skills, tons of great class abilities that are appropriate for this AP: Wild shape into a shark or a water elemental, wild empathy make friends with sharks, oh and uh some serious spell casting power. :)
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Check and see which party members have Water Breathing and Water Walking. If no one does, go with a Cleric or Warpriest, because they have both. These spells are too good to pass up in a Pirate campaign.
Air Bubble is good at lower levels. When the Cleric hits 9th, he'll have access to Life Bubble which is _really_ good.
Have you considered a Skald? All the party buffs and support spells of a bard with the muscle of a barbarian...
Check and see which party members have Water Breathing and Water Walking. If no one does, go with a Cleric or Warpriest, because they have both. These spells are too good to pass up in a Pirate campaign.
Air Bubble is good at lower levels. When the Cleric hits 9th, he'll have access to Life Bubble which is _really_ good.
Having played through Skull and Shackles before, I don't remember water breathing being a thing that was ubiquitously required.
There were points where it was definitely useful, but I think the campaign also hands out potions of water breathing for when it would be needed (if you didn't have some other means).
Not to say that it's not a relevant point, just not the one I would focus on.
In any event, based on the predilection for martial power I still wouldn't recommend cleric. To me it's Arsenal Chaplain Warpriest or Inquisitor all the way. The Inquisitor has more skills and a different spell list that is better for a martial style with some buffing. Warpriest has the traditonal cleric list, which I haven't ever liked all that much (it's a lot of really circumstantial spells).
If anyone else in the party will have access to those kind of spells, even if it means buying a wand for that person to use I think that's a better route than building a character only for access to water breathing/walking.
Thanks everyone! Lots of good replies and advice! =D
Inquisitor seems super fun and useful. =)
@Chell Raighn I had not considered Skald. They wouldent really be useful to most of the party (A Crossbow using ranger, A Gunslinger and a psionic caster) But I supose they would be very useful in buffing themselves and the one other melee character.
Well archetypes can change that... the court poet archetype makes the Skald useful to other spellcasters... though less useful to most non-spellcasters... and the spellwarrior archetype makes them equally useful to all weapon using classes... which given your party composition, the spellwarrior sounds the most useful...