BLACKOAK: The Plate and the Fog — What Drake's Sailor Saw in the California Fog That No Official Record Contains
Blackoak the Adventures by Myia Hanson and Jeremy Hanson
E9
Apr 7, 2026
41:34
Episode notes
BLACKOAK: The Plate and the Fog — What Drake's Sailor Saw in the California Fog That No Official Record Contains
The Golden Hind was riding too deep.When Francis Drake captured the Cacafuego in March of 1579 and transferred somewhere in the range of 80 tons of silver bars into a hull designed for 150 tons of total displacement, he created a practical problem. A problem that every careful captain with a Pacific crossing ahead of him would need to solve. And when he put the ship into a protected bay on the California coast that summer for repairs that took nearly five weeks, he had the time, the fog, and the privacy to solve it.Whether he did is the question four centuries of treasure hunters have been unable to answer.In this episode of BLACKOAK: The Adventures, the ancient sentient tankard carries an account it received in a Plymouth tavern in April of 1581 — from Edward Croft, a common sailor aboard the Golden Hind who was part of the working party Drake led into the California hills with specific tools on the third morning of the stop. He was asked to dig. He did not ask why. He helped fill the hole and returned to the ship and said nothing for seven months. Then he came to the Barbican with the weight of what he had carried and set it down with something that could hold it.He told Blackoak what the fog was like. What Drake looked like watching the waterline. What the working party carried into the hills. What the ground looked like when they left it. What the native people on that shore were actually doing that no official account rendered honestly. What the brass plate looked like nailed to its post. And how, on the last evening before the ship departed, he went back up alone into the dusk to stand above the place and memorize its geometry — the tree stand, the ridge, the stream direction — because he could not bear for that knowledge to live only in one man.Drake never returned to Nova Albion. He died off Panama in 1596 in a lead coffin that is still on the floor of the Caribbean. Whatever he put in that California hillside — if he put anything — is still there. Or is distributed across the hill by four centuries of earthquake and erosion.Or is nothing but the fog.BLACKOAK: The Adventures is a historical mystery podcast narrated by an ancient sentient tankard forged from the wreckage of a warship off the Carolina coast. It has spent centuries in rooms where history's most dangerous and private decisions were made. Every episode delivers history from the inside — not from the official account, but from the weight of what common men set down with something old enough to receive it.Produced by Fuzzy Life Studios. Premium cinematic audio storytelling.
The Golden Hind was riding too deep.When Francis Drake captured the Cacafuego in March of 1579 and transferred somewhere in the range of 80 tons of silver bars into a hull designed for 150 tons of total displacement, he created a practical problem. A problem that every careful captain with a Pacific crossing ahead of him would need to solve. And when he put the ship into a protected bay on the California coast that summer for repairs that took nearly five weeks, he had the time, the fog, and the privacy to solve it.Whether he did is the question four centuries of treasure hunters have been unable to answer.In this episode of BLACKOAK: The Adventures, the ancient sentient tankard carries an account it received in a Plymouth tavern in April of 1581 — from Edward Croft, a common sailor aboard the Golden Hind who was part of the working party Drake led into the California hills with specific tools on the third morning of the stop. He was asked to dig. He did not ask why. He helped fill the hole and returned to the ship and said nothing for seven months. Then he came to the Barbican with the weight of what he had carried and set it down with something that could hold it.He told Blackoak what the fog was like. What Drake looked like watching the waterline. What the working party carried into the hills. What the ground looked like when they left it. What the native people on that shore were actually doing that no official account rendered honestly. What the brass plate looked like nailed to its post. And how, on the last evening before the ship departed, he went back up alone into the dusk to stand above the place and memorize its geometry — the tree stand, the ridge, the stream direction — because he could not bear for that knowledge to live only in one man.Drake never returned to Nova Albion. He died off Panama in 1596 in a lead coffin that is still on the floor of the Caribbean. Whatever he put in that California hillside — if he put anything — is still there. Or is distributed across the hill by four centuries of earthquake and erosion.Or is nothing but the fog.BLACKOAK: The Adventures is a historical mystery podcast narrated by an ancient sentient tankard forged from the wreckage of a warship off the Carolina coast. It has spent centuries in rooms where history's most dangerous and private decisions were made. Every episode delivers history from the inside — not from the official account, but from the weight of what common men set down with something old enough to receive it.Produced by Fuzzy Life Studios. Premium cinematic audio storytelling.
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