See Sea Venture Monument, Bermuda

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The monument is a nine-foot wooden cross. It is a recreation of the original cross that was made by the survivors to claim the island for England. On 2 June 1609, Sea Venture, the new flagship of the Virginia Company, is leading a fleet of nine vessels, loaded with several hundred settlers, food and supplies for the new English colony of Jamestown, in Virginia. The fleet was caught in a storm on 24 July, and Sea Venture was separated and began to founder. When the reefs to the East of Bermuda were spotted, the ship was deliberately driven on them to prevent its sinking, thereby saving all aboard, 150 sailors and settlers, and one dog. They stay in Bermuda for 10 months. William Shakespeare's play The Tempest, in which the character Ariel refers to the "still-vex'd Bermoothes" (I.ii.229), is thought to have been inspired by William Strachey's account of this shipwreck.

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