Hesketh Island is approximately 1.2 miles (1.9 km) long and is situated on the southern shore of Kachemak Bay, about 9.5 miles (15 km) south of Homer and 8 miles (13 km) northeast of Seldovia, Alaska. In 1880, William Healey Dall named the island after Sir Thomas Hesketh, who visited Cook Inlet that year on the yacht Lancashire Witch. The nearby Lancashire Rocks were also named after the yacht.

Sir Thomas George Fermor-Hesketh, a British baronet and soldier, embarked on a world cruise in January 1879 aboard his newly constructed steam auxiliary yacht, Lancashire Witch. After departing Madeira for Montevideo, he received news of a significant British defeat in the Anglo-Zulu War in South Africa. This information reached him in late March while he was in Punta Arenas. He promptly set sail for Natal (now Durban) via the Falkland Islands, where he offered his services to the British Army. Fermor-Hesketh became involved in mounted action at the Battle of Ulundi.

The Lancashire Witch was built as a private vessel in 1878 by R. Steel & Co. of Greenock, England. It featured a composite construction with an iron keel, stem, stern posts, and iron framing, but was planked with wood. The ship was rigged as a three-masted schooner with square-rigged sails on the foremast only. It was powered by a 75-horsepower, two-cylinder, compound inverted steam engine that drove a single screw. In 1894, the vessel was converted into a British hydrographic survey ship and renamed HMS Waterwitch. Read more here and here. Explore more of Hesketh Island and Kachemak Bay here: