Francis Drake is Drakes Bay, California. Drake left the Pacific coast, heading southwest to catch the winds that would carry his ship across the Pacific, and a few months later reached the Moluccas, a group of islands in the western Pacific, in eastern modern-day Indonesia. While there, "Golden Hind" became caught on a reef and was almost lost. After the sailors waited three days for convenient tides and had dumped cargo, they freed the barque. Befriending a sultan king of the Moluccas, Drake and his men became involved in some intrigues with the Portuguese there. He made multiple stops on his way
Francis Drake was rescinded a year later after protests from Philip of Spain. He set out from Plymouth on 15 November 1577, but bad weather threatened him and his fleet. They were forced to take refuge in Falmouth, Cornwall, from where they returned to Plymouth for repair. After this major setback, Drake set sail again on 13 December aboard "Pelican" with four other ships and 164 men. He soon added a sixth ship, "Mary" (formerly "Santa Maria"), a Portuguese merchant ship that had been captured off the coast of Africa near the Cape Verde Islands. He also added its captain, Nuno da