Places not on Google Maps – The North Sandwich Islands

Extracts from the following book – Places not on Google Maps

When Captain James Cook sailed around the world, he must have been feeling extremely hungry. This can be the only explanation for the number of places he named after the humble sandwich. In no particular order, they are as follows:

• The Sandwich Islands was the name given to Hawaii.
• South Sandwich Islands, an archipelago, part of the British overseas territory of ‘South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands’ in the south Atlantic Ocean.
• Sandwich Island, a former name of the uninhabited atoll Manuae in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific Ocean.
• Sandwich Island, a former name of Efate Island in The Republic of Vanuatu in the South Pacific Ocean.

The remotest place he named after the sandwich were the North Sandwich Islands, a small group of islands four hundred miles due north of St Helena. Cook named them the Sandwich Islands after the colourful horizontal strata in the cliffs. The “North” was added by The Admiralty in 1781, after they realised how confusing it was to have so many islands named the same. These islands are entirely volcanic and covered in rainforest. Napoleon declined to be exiled here in 1815 as he didn’t want to be associated with anywhere that reminded him of English cuisine.