Five days later, the Armada de Molucca observed its first Christmas away from Spain in the shelter of Rio’s harbor, but there was little time to reflect on the holiday because the men busily prepared the ships for departure. Before weighing anchor, Magellan, together with his trusted pilots and navigators, attempted to determine the coordinates of Rio de Janeiro. Although they lacked the skills and instruments necessary to calibrate longitude with accuracy, they believed they could make useful calculations with the help of Ruy Faleiro’s tables and the advice of Andrés de San Martín, the fleet’s astrologer and astronomer. Not surprisingly, they arrived at an unreliable estimate, but they did make reasonably accurate calculations of the latitudes of several landmarks they had visited. Even Magellan’s best measurements, good to within a degree or two, were not accurate enough to warn subsequent travelers away from hazards such as shoals and rocks; they were, at best, rough approximations.
Just before sailing, Magellan replaced Antonio de Coca, the fleet accountant who had briefly assumed command of San Antonio from Cartagena, with the inexperienced Álvaro de Mesquita. Both de Coca and Cartagena took the shuffle as an insult, because Mesquita had shipped out aboard the flagship from Seville as a mere supernumerary. The deposed captains cried nepotism, which was true, because Mesquita was Magellan’s cousin. The lack of qualified captains in the fleet’s roster would trouble Magellan throughout the voyage. Although he had a surplus of qualified pilots, most were Portuguese, and so excluded from the top ranks of this Spanish expedition. As the voyage continued, these professional, accomplished pilots served resentfully under the figurehead captains.
After two weeks of sensual indulgence, the fleet’s departure from Rio de Janeiro on December 27 became an emotionally charged affair. João Lopes Carvalho, Magellan’s pilot, returning to Brazil after a seven-year absence, happily reunited with his former mistress, who introduced him to their son. Carvalho took an immediate liking to the lad, whom he called Joãozito, and enlisted him as a servant aboard ship. As the fleet prepared to embark, the pilot beseeched Magellan for permission to take along the mother of his child, but Magellan allowed absolutely no women on the ships. Carvalho would sail alone.
Alarmed by the prospect of other liaisons affecting the crew, Magellan ordered an inspection of every inch of every ship for female stowaways. Several were found and swiftly returned to shore. When the fleet finally weighed anchor and sailed away, Indian women followed them in canoes, tearfully pleading with the men from distant shores to stay with them forever.
Resuming a southerly course, the fleet, helped by favorable winds, reached Paranaguá Bay, off the coast of Brazil, by the last day of 1519. Intent on making up for time, Magellan ordered the ships to remain offshore rather than exploring the bay, one of the largest estuaries in the southwest Atlantic. Fully provisioned, the Armada de Molucca sailed on, day and night, until January 8, 1520, when Magellan spied a stretch of shoal extending as far as the eye could see. Concerned about hitting a concealed formation, he gave an order to drop anchor, but only for the night; in the morning, the fleet sailed on.
On January 10, the rolling hills and mountains of the South American coast yielded to barely discernible hummocks and the suggestion of offshore islands. Carvalho declared that they had arrived at Cape Santa María, rumored to be the gateway to the strait. If luck favored the fleet, Magellan could reach his goal ahead of winter storms. It was now summer in these subequatorial regions, and he wanted to take advantage of the relatively mild weather and traverse the strait before the weather turned cold. Just when he believed he was approaching the mouth of the strait, all his maps turned to blank wastes and speculative renderings, and the monotonous barrier of South American coast continued without relief.
Magellan’s hope for a swift completion to the expedition would not be fulfilled.
Five months from Seville, the crew and officers had become familiar with the ships as well as the rigors and deprivations of life at sea. They had learned of the violence of storms, the life-and-death necessity of sounding the bottom, and the limits of the proud vessels in which they sailed over the surface of the limitless sea. The misery of seasickness was at last behind them. There had been no escape from the ordeal; even veteran mariners were vulnerable to its pains. According to folk wisdom, sexual activity increased the likelihood of seasickness, but it was a rare sailor who could resist the opportunity for coupling before setting out on a long voyage.
At sea, sleep became the ultimate luxury, a solace nearly impossible to come by. The crew took naps whenever they could, night or day. Hammocks had yet to be introduced on board ships, so exhausted sailors appropriated a plank or, better still, a sheltered area of the deck where they could sprawl. They eased the wood’s bruising hardness with a straw pallet, and shielded themselves against the cold and wet with heavy blankets. Even then, comfort eluded them. The men never became accustomed to the foul odors brewing aboard their ships. Water seeping into the hold stank despite the efforts to disinfect it with vinegar; animals such as cows and pigs added to the reek, as did the slowly rotting food supply and the sickening smell of salted fish wafting from the hold.
Pests were ubiquitous, an inescapable fact of life at sea. Teredos, or shipworms, bored through the hull, slowly compromising the seaworthiness of the entire vessel, and one ship in Magellan’s fleet eventually disintegrated because of the wretched little creatures. Rats and mice infested every ship, and the sailors learned to live with them and even to play with them. Magellan’s crew might have brought along a domestic creature new to Europe at the time—the cat—to hunt the rodents, following the practice of the day, although no record confirms that they did. It is recorded, however, that the men of the Armada de Molucca were plagued with all manner of lice, bedbugs, and cockroaches. When conditions turned hot and humid, the insects infested the clothing, the sails, the food supply, and even the rigging. The sailors scratched and complained, but they had no defense against the pests. Even worse, weevils invaded the hardtack, and it was further contaminated with the urine and feces of rodents. Crew members with growling stomachs forced themselves to overcome their inhibitions and swallow this disgusting, contaminated provender.
Sailors found it nearly impossible to keep clean; many brought along soap and a rag for washing, but the only available water—seawater—caused itching and irritation. The sailors washed their clothes in seawater as well, with limited results. To keep warm and dry, sailors wore baggy, loosely fitting clothes consisting of a floppy shirt, often with a hood, over which they wore a woolen pullover known as a sayuelo, which was cinched at the waist. Sailors were known everywhere for their floppy, pajamalike pants (zaragüelles), which reached below the knees. Depending on the rank of the sailor, and the money at his disposal, zaragüelles could be made of anything from the cheap coarse linen known as anjeo (after Anjou, in France) to fine wool lined with silk taffeta.
In foul weather, sailors and officers alike donned great blue capes called capotes de la mar; it was a common sight to see a watchman huddled within his cape, with only his head exposed, peering across a storm-tossed deck for hours on end. Sailors protected their heads (and ears) with a woolen cap called a bonete: more than any other article of clothing, the bonete was the mark of a sailor. Magellan brought along a number of caps, mostly in red, to befriend the Indians he expected to encounter along his route to the Spice Islands, but most sailors wore a bonete of a more dignified black or blue. Frayed from hard use and harsh conditions, the clothing demanded constant repair, and the sailors learned to become handy with a needle. Many sailors carried knives tucked into their waistbands for safekeeping.