Elizabethan navigator John Davis, whose ship the Desire was driven among the Islands in August 1592, is generally recognised as the first to discover the Islands. On August 9 1592, while making for the Straits of Magellan, Davis ran into a severe storm:
“we had a sore storm so that we were constrained to hull (lie to) for our sails would not endure any force. The 14th. We were driven in among certain isles never before discovered by any known relation, lying fifty leagues or better from the shore East and Northerly from the Straits in which place it had pleased God of his wonderful mercy to have ceased the winde we must of necessity have perished.”
