Urdaneta's return route

Aeternum's first series will be called Maris, and it starts from one specific episode: the return voyage of 1565. This entry tells that story, because the name of the series makes more sense with the history in front of you.

Crossing the Pacific westward had been done since Magellan. Coming back had not. For more than four decades, attempts to sail back east ended the same way: headwinds, months adrift and a return to the starting point. The way out existed. The way back was considered impossible.

Andrés de Urdaneta, a sailor and Augustinian friar, argued for another route: do not fight the winds, sail north until you find the ones that blow towards America. In June 1565 he set out on that idea, and in October he made port in Acapulco. Four months at sea, and a route that, with adjustments, stayed in use for two and a half centuries linking Asia and America.

The Maris commemorates that voyage. It is still in development, with no date and no price, and this diary is not going to invent either. When something is firm, it will be told here.