Juan Carrasco (explorer)
After leaving Sooke, the voyage continued east, passing between Race Rocks and Vancouver Island and anchoring near present-day Esquimalt, at the shoreline today called Royal Roads.
[2] On July 4, 1790, the Spanish left Esquimalt and crossed to the south side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, anchoring near Dungeness Spit.
The ship Princesa Real remained at anchor while boats were used to explore the eastern end of the Strait and the maze of islands and channels they found there.
In this manner the Spanish reached the vicinity of Admiralty Inlet, the entrance to Puget Sound, and noted a larger channel leading north (today called Rosario Strait).
Today's Port Discovery was entered and named Puerto de Quadra, for Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra, the commander of Spanish naval operations in the North Pacific, based at San Blas[2] In mid-July Quimper consulted with his pilots, Carrasco and Haro, as to whether they should conduct further explorations and risk a difficult return to Nootka, or return immediately.
The expedition then crossed to the southern side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and sailed west along the coast, reaching Neah Bay by August.
[2] While in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Quimper performed several formal ceremonies claiming Spanish possession of the region, at Sooke, Royal Roads near Esquimalt, Dungeness Spit, and Neah Bay.
In 1791 Carrasco took part in an exploratory expedition led by Ship Lieutenant Francisco de Eliza, then the new commandant at Nootka Sound.
[4] After exploring Clayoquot Sound for about two weeks, the San Carlos sailed into the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Esquimalt.
[3] Eliza instructed pilot Juan Pantoja y Arriaga to explore Haro Strait with the Santa Saturnina and a longboat.
[3] During the exploration of the Strait of Georgia the crew of the Santa Santurnina noted copious amounts of fresh water and correctly deduced that the mouth of a large river lay nearby.
Eliza transferred Narváez to the San Carlos and gave Juan Carrasco command of the Santa Saturnina.
[3] Carrasco, however, was unable or unwilling to beat upwind to Nootka and instead sailed the Santa Saturnina south to Monterey, California, arriving there on September 16, 1791.
Thus Malaspina, a powerful figure of the Spanish navy at the time, became the first to know about the discovery of the Strait of Georgia, outside of Eliza's sailors at Nootka Sound.
European hopes of discovering a Northwest Passage were still politically important at the time, and the Strait of Georgia's many promising channels leading east and north represented one of the last realistic possibilities.
Shortly after his encounter with Carrasco, Malaspina sailed to San Blas and Acapulco, where he arranged to have two of his own officers, Dionisio Alcalá Galiano and Cayetano Valdés, take command of two ships for the purpose of fully exploring the Strait of Georgia.
