Again from Acapulco to the Open Sea

It was, in fact, Urdaneta who established, in no uncertain terms, that the Port of Acapulco was to be designated as a home base for the departing fleet. as “it is safe and sure and very healthy, with good waters and abundant fish and ample woods for the fitting out of my ships and straight pines for the masts and lateen yards.” How well this expert seaman expressed himself! He further established that in Acapulco there were existing facilities for producing nails, chains, cannon and bronze anchors. Nevertheless, his proposal was rejected because Lopez de Legazpi preferred the port at Barra de Navidad, from which he finally set sail on November 21, 1564, on a colonizing expedition to the Philippines. Urdaneta was by this time fifty-six and Lopez de Legazpi was over sixty. They carried 200 soldiers on their five ships, many of them of native extraction, as well as 150 sailors and six men of religion.

They had been preceded, after Alvaro de Saavedra, by Don Ruy Lopez de Villalobos. By orders of Antonio de Mendoza they departed, in 1542, from the Port of Navidad in the Philippines now baptized formally with this name in honor of Philip, the son of Charles V, while at the same time they honored their king by naming the nearby Carolines after him. Sadly, Lopez de Villalobos never managed to return to New Spain.

The Manilan voyage was supported by favorable winds. Since the journey was, in general, easy and tranquil, it is not surprising that the Galician pilot Francisco Antonio Mourelle dared to travel in a ship’s launch, the Sonora, which was conserved in the Port of Cavite, in San Bias, Manila, in 1799.