Magellan Circumnavigation 2
On the tenth of August 1519 the Armada de Molucca set off from Seville along the Guadalquivir River to the Atlantic Ocean. After a week the fleet reached the coastal town of Sanlucar de Barrameda and set off into the Atlantic on September 20. Magellan set three watches: the first at dusk, the second at midnight, and the third near daybreak. The watches were rotated every day and the sailor who was on watch 1 did watch 2 the next day and so on. Fair weather blew Magellan and the fleet southwest to the Canary Islands where they reprovisioned at Tenerife for three and a half days. Unfortunately the merchants of Tenerife had cheated him on the amounts. Magellan then left for Monterose where they got some pitch. While here, Magellan heard that the portuguese were looking to arrest him. Magellan gave the order to raise anchor and sailed on October 3rd towards Cape Verde to the south and then onwards past the coast of Guinea and the coast of Africa hoping to avoid the Portuguese caravels looking for him.
The Armada de Molucca ran south for fifteen days under favourable winds. But the weather started to turn bad, and they had no reliable charts. After months of storms the fleet was in need of repairs, and the provisions started to go bad. Rations had to be reduced and then they drifted into the doldrums. The fleet drifted south in late October and November 1519 until the wind started to blow and they set course to the southwest towards Rio de Janeiro. Because they did not know about the South Equatorial Current, the fleet was carried west of its destination to Cape Saint Augustine on November 29th, where they took on food and water and followed the Brazilian coast until they reached rio de janeiro on December 13.
Luckily there were no portuguese ships in the harbour.
After Rio de janeiro the fleet called in at Port Saint Julian on March 31, 1520 and stayed there for months because of the approaching winter. After rebellions, mutiny, and exploratory missions south, magellan left Port Saint Julian on August 24 and went into the mouth of the Santa Cruz River where they sheltered from the storms and once again set off on a southby southwest course looking for a strait through to the pacific ocean. On October 21 1520 Magellan reached the entrance to the Magellan Strait at the Cape of the Eleven Thousand Virgins. Magellan sailed into the strait along the coast of Tierra del Fuego and tied up in Lomas Bay. At a junction of two passages, Froward REach and Magdalen Sound Magellan sent the Concepcion and the San Antonio to explore ahead to see which way to go. The San Antonio snuck away in the night and sailed back to Spain.
On Wednesday November 28 1520 Magellan sailed into the Pacific Ocean past Cape Desire. The crew was now less than two hundred in three ships - the Trinidad, the flagship of the fleet, the Concepcion, commanded by Juan Serrano, and the Victoria under the command of Duarte Barbosa. But Magellan had no idea of the size of the Pacific Ocean or what lay ahead. Magellan crosses the Pacific
Magellan Circumnavigation Resources
Magellan Circumnavigation part 1
Magellan circumnavigation part 3
Magellan circumnavigation part 4
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