Juan de Fuca
"Juan de Fuca" is a hispanicization of the Greek name Ioannis Fokas or Phokas (Ἰωάννης Φωκᾶς), latinized as Johannes Phocas.
It is known that his father and grandfather bore the name Focas, so it seems likely that Valerianos was a nickname or epithet borrowed from the village where he grew up on Cefalonia.
De Fuca's grandfather Emmanouil Fokas (Ἐμμανουὴλ Φωκᾶς) fled Constantinople during its fall in 1453, accompanied by his brother Andronikos (Ἀνδρόνικος).
[3] De Fuca's early voyages were to the Far East, and he claimed to have arrived in New Spain in 1587 when, off Cabo San Lucas in Baja California, the English privateer Thomas Cavendish seized his galleon Santa Ana and deposited him ashore.
[4] Before he made his famous trip up the northwest coast of the North American continent, he sailed to China, the Philippines and Mexico.
The one voyage saw 200 soldiers and three small ships under the overall command of a Spanish captain (with de Fuca as pilot and master) assigned the task of finding the Strait of Anián and fortifying it against the English.
Disappointed again and disgusted with the Spanish, the aging Greek determined to retire to his home in Kefallonia, but was in 1596 convinced by an Englishman, Michael Lok (also spelled as Locke in English and French documents from the period), to offer his services to Spain's archenemy, Queen Elizabeth.
][citation needed] In 2003, Samuel Bawlf posited that "Fuca's story was nothing more than a fabrication designed to extract money from the English government".
