This posting is generally remembered for a remarkable act of seamanship; when Calliope was in harbour, the island was struck by a powerful cyclone.
Experts at canoe building and seamanship, the Arawaks migrated from the Amazon River Valley and Orinoco regions of Venezuela and Brazil, settling on the islands near coasts and rivers.
For generations warlike Moro tribes had successfully prevented Spain from fully controlling the areas around Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago, developing a well-earned reputation as notorious seafaring raiders, adept naval tacticians, and ferocious warriors who frequently demonstrated extraordinary personal bravery in combat.
In seamanship, the candidate was expected to be able to splice ropes, reef a sail, work a ship in sailing and shift his tides.
Early in 1793, after the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars, Hood went to the Mediterranean in Juno under his cousin Lord Hood, and distinguished himself by an audacious feat of coolness and seamanship in extricating his vessel from the harbour of Toulon, which he had entered in ignorance of Lord Hood's withdrawal.
In the 1975 movie Jaws, the character Matt Hooper, played by Richard Dreyfuss, claims that he has "crewed three Transpacs" as a means of establishing his seamanship credentials with Quint.