Part V · The Way Back
Chapter 17
North for the Wind
The islands and the open Pacific
The tornaviaje, the return voyage, was the San Pedro’s crossing from Cebu to Mexico in 1565, with Andrés de Urdaneta aboard. Instead of fighting east against the trade winds, the ship sailed far to the north to find westerly winds, and reached Acapulco on 8 October 1565, about four months after leaving Cebu.
What was the tornaviaje?
Spanish for “the return voyage”: the route back across the Pacific from the Philippines to Mexico, found in 1565 by the *San Pedro*, with Andrés de Urdaneta aboard. Ships had sailed west across the Pacific since Magellan, but every attempt to sail back east had failed against the trade winds. The *San Pedro* sailed north to about 39 degrees, into the westerly winds, and reached Acapulco on 8 October 1565.
1–10 June 1565
The *San Pedro* leaves the port of Cebu on 1 June by the channel between Cebu and Mactan, and works her way north and east through the islands. Her pilot Rodrigo de Espinosa keeps a log. At one island where they land for water they see “two lofty volcanoes,” and call it Peñol, the Rock.
On 10 June they reach the island of Felipina, and leave the last land behind them. Ahead is the open Pacific, which no ship has yet crossed in this direction.
Everyone aboard knows what has happened to those who tried: Magellan’s *Trinidad*, Saavedra’s *Florida*, Villalobos’s *San Juan*, all beaten back. Urdaneta, who saw some of those failures for himself, has a different plan. He will not sail east. He will sail north.
21 June 1565
On 21 June, the feast of Corpus Christi, they sight a headland that looks like a ship at anchor. They call it Espíritu Santo, the Holy Spirit. Then there is only sea.
Day after day the log records the wind, the height of the sun, and the day’s run: as little as five leagues, as much as forty-five. The ship climbs north, out of the steady trade winds of the tropics, towards the latitudes where the wind blows from the west.
9 July 1565
On 9 July the captain asks his two pilots and his boatswain for their best guess of the distance from Cebu to New Spain. The chief pilot’s chart shows eighteen hundred and fifty leagues; he thinks it is nearer two thousand. Espinosa’s old map shows about fourteen hundred, but he guesses two thousand and thirty. The boatswain says two thousand and ten.
Nobody really knows how wide the Pacific is. They are about to find out.