The English expedition under the command of…
January 1554 CE
The English expedition under the command of navigator Sir Hugh Willoughby had reached the Barents Sea, but there they had had run into trouble, one ship having become separated from the other two by "terrible whirlwinds" in the Norwegian Sea.
They had then sailed an erratic course, perhaps going as far east as Novaya Zemyla, and on September 14, 1553, the Bona Esperanza, with Willoughby aboard, and the Bona Confidentia, had entered a harbor in Lapland on the Kola Peninsula near the present border between Finland and Russia, where Willoughby had decided to remain during the bitter Arctic winter.
With no food, however, the crews of both ships soon perish.
(Their bodies, the ships, and Willoughby's journal will be found by fishermen a year or so later.)
It has also been suggested that Willoughby and his crew had been killed by carbon monoxide poisoning, following their decision to insulate their ship from the bitter Arctic cold.
During the voyage, Willoughby had thought he had seen islands to the north.
Based on his description, these will subsequently be depicted on maps as Willoughby's Land and Macsinof or Matsyn Island.
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