Frank Drake is Back!

I won’t bore you with my trip from Cathay to this wonderful island. Suffice to say that I ended up on a wonderful island in the South Seas. The natives were friendly and shared their hospitality but I was becoming restless. I needed a new adventure. One day a tall ship flying the Union Jack sailed into the bay! I swam out to greet it and was introduced to the Master – a man named Cook! He welcomed me aboard and invited me to join the crew on their quest to find a Northwest Passage. After many weeks we found a series of islands that we claimed for England. We called them the Sandwich Islands but they later became known as the Hawaiian Islands. We spent several weeks sailing northeast toward the west coast of America. I kept fit by swimming alongside the ship.

We made landfall and could see a distant peak that resembled me when I was feeding in shallow water. The captain turned to me and said “We will call that mountain The Golden Behind.” I had to swallow a small lump in my throat! Eventually (Captain Cook said it was 1778) we arrived in a sound and were greeted by the inhabitants of what has been called Friendly Cove. Here I heard if a lush valley that was known as the “Land of Plenty” and decided to find it. It wasn’t hard to find and I arrived at a beautiful estuary overlooked by a spectacular glacier called Queneesh. It was a rich culture and I was introduced to the stories of the local people in their big house as they celebrated through dance and song. I spent many years here enjoying the hospitality and exploring the local rivers and lakes. I even started a family with a local beauty I met.

But I developed itchy webbed feet and knew it was time to move on to find another adventure. I told my family that I would return because this was an ideal place for my retirement. I wonder if others ever thought that!