540 A. E. Verrill— The Bermuda Islands. 
I have heard him say, wading out of the floud thereof, all his ambi- 
tion was but to climb above hatches to die in Aperto ccelo, and in 
the company of his old friends.” 
According to Jourdan, Admiral Somers showed great courage and 
endurance. He says that the admiral descried the land while sitting 
‘“‘on the Poope,” ‘where he sate three days and three nights 
together, without meales, meate, and little or no sleepe, conning the 
ship to keep her as upright as he could, for otherwise shee must 
needes have instantly foundered.” With all that they could do she 
had nine feet of water in the hold. 
On the 28th of July, when they had nearly given up in despair, 
they made the islands of Bermuda and tried to run the ship ashore 
on a sandy beach that they saw, but fortunately she struck on an 
outlying reef, which, according to Somers’ own report, in 1610, was 
a quarter of a mile from the shore. She lodged in an upright posi- 
tion between two rocks, and was so firmly wedged there that she 
remained in that position, so that the entire party, including some 
women and children, were safely taken ashore in the boats. 
They landed in a “ goodly bay,” “upon which our governor did 
first leape ashore, and therefore called it, as aforesaid, Gates-his- 
Bay.” This name, Gates’ Bay, does not appear on any modern maps, 
nor even on the early ones of Norwood, 1622 and 1663. 
Governor Butler, in his “‘ Historye,” stated that this was the bay or 
cove close by Fort Catherine. He was undoubtedly familiar with 
the details of this shipwreck. Certainly there were, in his time, some 
of the wrecked company living on the islands, and certain parts of 
the wreck were still visible. Indeed, in 1622, he recovered from the 
? was 
not much damaged; also a large sheet anchor, and sundry bars of 
wreck two pieces of ordnance; one of these, called a ‘ saker,’ 
iron, steel, and lead, all of which the colony much needed, as he stated 
in his history. 
But if this cove were the Gates’ Bay referred to, either the 
modern location of the “Sea Adventure Shoals,” on the Admiralty 
Chart, is incorrect, or else Sir George Somers much underestimated 
the distance from the shore,* for the shoals so named are put on the 
chart at a distance of about one mile from the beach at Fort 
Catherine, but only half a mile from that of the nearer bay, now 
called Buildings Bay. If the site of the wreck be correctly located 
* Wm. Strachy, in his narrative, stated that the distance was three-quarters 
of a mile. Silvanus Jourdan, one of the same company, stated that it was ‘‘ half 
an English mile.” The admiral’s estimate would, naturally, be the more correct. 
