They relaunched the ships and another month dragged by—crosswinds, headwinds, calms. Cabrillo took constant sightings of sun and stars with his massive astrolabe, no small task for he had to stand with his back braced against a mast for steadiness on the heaving deck while he called out the readings that were to be recorded in the log. Speed was computed by throwing a wooden float over the stern and counting the marks flashing by as the line holding it unwound from its reel. Compasses were used, but magnetic declinations were not well understood. All of Cabrillo’s longitudes and latitudes were wide of the mark, but the fault was not entirely his or his instruments. He began his reckonings at a point inaccurately observed by others. Even the precise location of Mexico City was unknown in 1542.
San Salvador, Cabrillo’s Flagship
Cabrillo himself built the ship he sailed up the California coast. It was constructed between 1536 and 1540 at Iztapa on the west coast of Guatemala. This region was something of a shipbuilding center, with a reputation for better quality than the yards of Seville, Spain. Much of the labor was furnished by Indians and black slaves, whole villages of whom were conscripted to portage supplies, raise food, cut lumber, trim timbers, and make pitch, rope, and charcoal.
San Salvador was a full-rigged galleon, with an approximate length of 100 feet, a beam of 25 feet, and a draft of 10 feet. The crew numbered about 60: 4 officers, 25 to 30 seamen, and 2 or 3 apprentices, and two dozen or so slaves, blacks and Indians. On the voyage to California, San Salvador also carried about 25 soldiers and at least one priest. The ship was armed with several cannon.
Ship’s fare was wine, hard bread, beans, salt meat, fish, and anything fresh picked up along the way, all washed down by mugs of wine. Officers, who probably brought along food of their own and servants to prepare it, ate better. Slaves lived off rations of soup and bread and scraps left by others.
The ship’s cannon probably resembled this Lombardo of the period. It fired a stone ball about 3½ inches in diameter.
This illustration by John Batchelor is based on the research of Melbourne Smith.
On September 28, three months after leaving Mexico, the ships crossed the future international border and put into a “very good enclosed port, to which they gave the name San Miguel.” It was our San Diego.
The Indians there were afraid. That evening they wounded, with arrows, three men of a fishing party. Instead of marching forth in retaliation, Cabrillo sailed slowly on into the harbor, caught two boys, gave them presents, and let them go. The kindness worked. The next day three large men partly dressed in furs (the “Summary” says) came to the ship and galloped around to illustrate horsemen killing Indians far inland. Melchior Díaz, fighting Yumans during his crossing of the Colorado in the fall of 1540? Or had word of Coronado’s battles at Háwikuh and on the Rio Grande trickled this far west along the trade trails? In any event, Europeans were no longer a mystery. On three more occasions Cabrillo picked up rumors of Spaniards in the interior.
After easily riding out the first storm of the season in the harbor, the ships sailed on, pausing at Avalon on Santa Catalina Island and later at the island we call San Clemente. Along the way they remarked on the many flat-lying streamers of smoke from Indian villages near San Pedro and, later, Santa Monica Bays (warnings, unrecognizable then, of temperature inversions and smog). Somewhere near modern Oxnard, they spent a few pleasant days with Chumash Indians, admiring their big, conical huts and their marvelous plank canoes. Tantalized by a fresh rumor of Spaniards near a large river (the Colorado?), Cabrillo sent out a letter in care of some Indians “on a chance.” But where the river reached the coast, if it did, he could not learn.
A deadeye and a triple-purchase block of the type used on San Salvador. Deadeyes and lanyards were employed in fixed rigging, frequently to secure shrouds that supported the mast; on the right is a typical setup, by which lines were tightened and secured to the vessel’s frame. A block and tackle were essential for hoisting heavy yards. Drawings by John Batchelor.
The coast from Oxnard to Cabo de Galera (our Point Conception) runs roughly east and west for nearly a hundred miles before bending sharply north. This stretch was heavily populated. Many canoes traveled alongside the ships, and there was a great deal of calling back and forth and exchanges of gifts. A string of islands, also populated, paralleled the shore, forming what is now called the Santa Barbara Channel. On October 18 the Spanish ships endeavored to round Cabo de Galera but were blown by strong winds out to the westernmost of the Channel Islands, one the mariners had not yet explored. They named it Posesión (it is now San Miguel) and remained in the shelter of Cuyler’s Harbor for about a week.