How to get home was the problem which this daring man had now to solve.
There was no possibility of returning by the way he had come. He well
knew that the news of his departure had reached Spain, and that her war
ships would be waiting for him, not only at the eastern entrance of the
Strait of Magellan, but at the Isthmus and in the Caribbean Sea.

If by sailing northward he could find the Strait of Anian, then his
homeward journey would be safe and short; but if he could not find that
illusive body of water, then there was left to him but the Pacific for a
highway. However, this did not daunt him, as he felt that what the
Portuguese Magellan had done, Drake the Englishman could do.

Keeping well out from shore, the Golden Hind now sailed northward for
nearly two months. Drake passed just west of the Farallon Islands, never
dreaming of the great harbor which lay so short a distance on the other
side. He traveled as far north as latitude 42i or possibly 43i, and
perhaps he even landed at one point, but he failed to find the strait.
According to Fletcher, the priest of the Church of England who kept a
journal of the expedition, they were finally forced by the extreme cold
to turn southward. "Here," says Fletcher, "it pleased God on this 17th
day of June, 1579, to send us, in latitude 38i, a convenient fit
harbor." This is now supposed to be Drakes Bay, which lies thirty miles
northwest of San Francisco, in Marin county.

"In this bay we anchored, and the people of the country having their
houses close to the waterside showed themselves unto us and sent
presents to our general. He, in return, courteously treated them and
liberally bestowed upon them things necessary to cover their nakedness.