Acapulco, Seaman and Monk

Three years after Juan Sebastian Elcano reached Sanlucar, at the end of the first round-the-world journey, he newly undertook a similar voyage. There was no longer anything in the world to frighten him. He turned his talents as pilot to the fleet of Fray Garci-Jofre de Loaisa, in 1525. After passing the Straits of Magellan they set out across the vast Pacific. But they died: first Loaisa, as they hit a thrashing high sea, and a few days later, Elcano, who was replaced by Toribio Alonso de Salazar and who, in the same unfortunate manner, was also soon to expire.

Martin Iñiguez de Garquisano was named in his place and it was he, in the lead ship Santa Maria de la Victoria, who reached the Spice islands or the Moluccas, the Moluccan Isles on today’s maps. He waited there for eight long years with his remaining survivors hoping for help to arrive from Spain, until 1528, when Alvaro de Saavedra was to arrive from New Spain. Finally, in 1535, they set out to complete what was to be the second voyage around the globe. They anchored a year later in Portugal.

The last leader of those intrepid adventurers was Andres de Urdaneta. He was only seventeen when Elcano took him on board as and aide. In Lisbon, where he was relieved of the reports and documents destined for delivery to the King of Spain, he was twenty-eight. And he was over fifty when, after a time spentin an Augustinian monastery in New Spain and as a result of a recommendation by Luis de Velasco, Philip II proposed Urdaneta as a companion to Miguel Lopez de Legazpi y Gurruchategui, for a projected expedition to the Western Isles.

“It has been given to me to understand that you are presumably and to a great extent, knowledgable in matters of those lands and that you are gifted in matters of navigation and that you are, as well, accomplished in cosmography, and it would therefore be to the benefit of my intentions to include you on my ships, for all the aims and purposes of this expedition, in the service of our Lord and Master, the Almighty God.” The King of Spain had thus expresed himself to Urdaneta in a Setter dated September 24, 1559, to which Urdaneta replied, from Mexico, on May 28, 1560, accepting his assignment as ordered by the Spanish monarch.