Fact: Henry Ray was the first person to set foot in Bermuda...after his ship The Sea Venture was wrecked on the Island's coral reefs.

Fact: Some years later, in 1609, Sir George Somers was shipwrecked in his boat (unnamed) which he repaired and sailed on to Virginia.

Such is the history of Bermuda - according to the Bermuda International Airport Handbook (pictured right).

And this revisionist approach does not end here, for there are several other "facts" guaranteed to bewilder students of the Island's history.

The handbook has been produced by Compass Publications Ltd. of Swaffham, Norfolk in the UK.

The company specialises in sea port and airport publications and produced 2,000 copies of the Bermuda Airport Handbook through its own initiative.

Compass Publications Ltd. publisher James Moriarty was contacted this week but could not make a detailed comment as he had to leave his office. He did say that Compass Publications Ltd. specialised in both sea port and airport publications and had produced handbooks for the Port of London, the port of Hamburg among others.

Airport general manager James Howes told The Royal Gazette that even though he knew the publication had inaccuracies, he thought it would be beneficial to distribute the handbook. "This was put together as I understand it at no cost to the airport. It was published in April and I came on board in May and we felt, since the time I got here it was already published and literally delivered to our offices, we thought we would go ahead and distribute it because we thought it would be helpful information even though we are aware there are some inaccuracies in it," said Mr. Howes.

As far as who initiated the publication, Mr. Howes said: "As I understand it was a group of local businesses and retailers that were interested in putting it together and the company that published it financed it thorough advertisements that they sold. So there was actually no money put into it by the Department of Airport Operations."

He added: "I think essentially it was spearheaded by the publisher and they in turn approached local businesses here in Bermuda for advertising."

Mr. Howes said the handbook was produced at no cost to Government or the Department of Airport Operations.

He said: "This group... simply said would we have any objection if they released a book about the airport and financing it through selling of advertisements. Of course we would have no objection to it, we think it is a nice thing to promote the airport."

Mr. Howes said the handbook was sent to the local business community and also had also been sent overseas to help promote the airport.

The handbook makes no mention of the recent awards won by the airport including being ranked first in the world for friendliness as it was published before the awards were given.

A few of the mistakes in the handbook include:

Concerning Bermuda's history, the opening text in the handbook says that it was not until 1593 that the first recorded landing was made by an Englishman, Henry Ray, (sic) following the shipwreck of his vessel, the Sea Venture.

Henry May was not aboard the Sea Venture, he was aboard a French ship.

The following paragraphs say that Admiral Sir George Somers was shipwrecked in 1609 and repaired his vessel and continued on his way.

The Sea Venture was not repaired. Parts of it were salvaged to help build two new ships, the Patience and the Deliverance, although due to the split of the shipwrecked colonists into two disputing factions, the Patience used only one iron bolt from the sea Venture, the rest of the salvaged materials being used to build the Deliverance.

Remnants of the Sea Venture remains on the bottom of the ocean to this day.

The Handbook says the Island's land mass is 22 square kilometres. The actual land mass is 20.5 square miles or 53.1 square kilometres.

Concerning Cahows, the handbook says: "There were once hundreds of thousands of Cahows inhabiting Bermuda which fell victim to pigs left by Portuguese sailors in the 16th century."

There is no mention of the role of man or rodents in decimating the Cahow population.