The hurricane struck the fleet on July 24, 1609, scattering the ships across the Atlantic. The Sea Venture took the worst of it. Water poured through the hull faster than the crew could bail. After three days of continuous pumping, the exhausted survivors had resigned themselves to death when someone spotted land.

Admiral Somers steered the sinking ship directly toward Bermuda's reefs, knowing that wreckage close to shore gave survivors better odds than sinking in open water. The Sea Venture wedged between two rocks three-quarters of a mile from shore, held fast, and became a stable platform from which everyone could reach land. Not a single life was lost in the wreck that would change everything.

Bermuda had a terrifying reputation. Previous Spanish ships had heard the cries of what they believed were demons - actually the calls of native birds. The reefs that protected the islands had claimed numerous vessels. Sailors considered the islands cursed, haunted, impossible to settle.

The reality was the opposite. Bermuda was lush and temperate, stocked with wild hogs (left by earlier Spanish explorers), sea turtles, fish, and native birds so tame they could be caught by hand. The survivors found not hellscape but paradise. They built comfortable shelters, established gardens, and found life on the 'Isle of Devils' considerably more pleasant than struggling Jamestown.

Admiral Somers and the colonists were bound for Jamestown, and duty eventually overcame comfort. Using salvaged materials from the Sea Venture and local Bermuda cedar, they spent ten months building two small boats - the Deliverance and the Patience. On May 10, 1610, they sailed for Virginia.

They arrived to find Jamestown nearly dead. Of the 500 colonists there when Sea Venture departed England, only 60 survivors remained after the 'Starving Time' of winter 1609-1610. The supplies and people from Bermuda helped save the colony. Some of the Bermuda settlers later returned to establish a permanent colony there in 1612, making Bermuda Britain's oldest continuously inhabited colony after Jamestown.

William Strachey, secretary-elect of Virginia who was aboard the Sea Venture, wrote a detailed account of the wreck and the months in Bermuda. His letter, circulated privately in London before being published in 1625, described storms, supernatural sounds, and an enchanted island that was not what it seemed.

Shakespeare's 'The Tempest,' written and performed around 1610-1611, tells of a ship wrecked by magic on a mysterious island where spirits dwell and transformation is possible. Scholars believe Strachey's account influenced the play. Bermuda becomes the unnamed island where Prospero rules, where shipwreck becomes salvation, and where what seems cursed proves blessed.

The Sea Venture's hull remained on the reef until 1958, when marine archaeologist Teddy Tucker located the wreck site. Artifacts including coins, navigational instruments, and the ship's timbers were recovered. A replica of the Deliverance sits in St. George's, the settlement founded by the original colonists.

Bermuda's motto references the founding: 'Quo Fata Ferunt' - 'Whither the Fates Carry Us.' The fates carried 150 people onto a reef they expected to kill them and gave them instead an island paradise. The Sea Venture was supposed to save Jamestown; instead, it founded something new. The devils turned out to be seabirds. The curse was a blessing. And a shipwreck became a beginning.