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Queen Elizabeth I called Francis Drake “my pirate.” The Spanish called him el Draque, “the Dragon.”

Commissioned in 1570 by the Queen, Drake made the equivalent of millions of dollars for England in a series of privateering raids that eventually earned Drake knighthood. He also was the first to circumnavigate the globe in 1580 and he defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588. Drake was a colorful character, and, as with all sea-faring adventurers, Drake myths and legends abound.

MYTH: DRAKE WAS A PIRATE.

Technically, Drake was a privateer, employed by the Queen, although it’s likely that the Spanish would argue for the title of pirate. Biographer Harry Kelsey argues that Drake wasn’t a brave seaman but rather an amoral privateer. In his biography, Sir Francis Drake: The Queen’s Pirate, Kelsey depicts Drake attacking Spanish merchant ships in the Caribbean, robbing and burning ports, looting churches, and taking a cut of the slave trade as much for his own financial interests as those of his country.

MYTH: DRAKE WAS THE FIRST EUROPEAN TO SET FOOT ON THE MONTEREY SHORE.

While Sebastián Vizcaíno has generally been credited as the first European to arrive in Monterey, in 1602, a half-buried bottle found on Moss Beach in 1934 made it look like Drake was here first. The bottle contained what appeared to be a 16th century English silver sixpence and a lead plate, claiming the land for the Queen, dated 1579, signed by Francis Drake.

A similar engraved brass plate was found near San Francisco Bay in 1936.

Drake did sail along the California coast in his galleon The Golden Hinde in 1579, and so local experts deemed the scrolls authentic. Scientific testing, however, some 40 years later, determined the San Francisco plate to be a fake. Most historians believe that the Moss Beach scroll was a hoax, too.

“An incredibly elaborate practical joke,” says Tim Thomas, museum historian for the Monterey History and Art Association.

But, it’s impossible to know for sure. In 1965, while the Moss Beach bottle’s finder was away on vacation, the bottle, sixpence and scroll were stolen. They haven’t been seen since.

FACT: DRAKE, SCOURGE OF THE SPANISH SEAS, WAS ALSO A PRETTY GOOD SURFER.

OK, maybe this one should go under the title of “legend,” but it sounds too good not to believe.

According to The Pirates Realm, (thepiratesrealm.com), Drake took some time between sacking Spanish galleons and circumnavigating the globe to surf the California coast.

“In March 1579, Drake captured with one shot one of the largest hauls of all time; the Cacafuego galleon yielded enough gold, silver, and jewels to put England’s economy in the black,” reads the Web site. “It took four days just to transfer it to The Golden Hinde’s hold. Drake sailed to the coast of California, did some surfing, and then headed west to arrive in England by September 1580, the first to circumnavigate the globe.”