Strait of Magellan
Magellan's three ships emerge from the strait into the Pacific
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Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗Five ships had left Spain. On 28 November 1520 three came out of the strait — one had wrecked, and aboard another, crewmen imprisoned their captain and turned back toward Spain.
Wednesday, 28 November 1520
Antonio Pigafetta, who accompanied the expedition, records that on Wednesday, 28 November 1520 the fleet came out of the strait and entered what he called the Pacific Sea.
The ships that emerged were Trinidad, Concepción and Victoria. Santiago had been wrecked earlier while reconnoitring the coast, and San Antonio had deserted inside the strait — men aboard confined Captain Álvaro de Mesquita and turned back toward Spain.
Two records of the same passage
Francisco Albo's navigational log records the fleet issuing from the strait past the western capes later identified as Cabo Fermoso and Cabo Deseado, and then sailing northwest and north.
Magellan had pressed on after reconnaissance boats confirmed that the maze of channels opened onto a great western sea, and after searching unsuccessfully for the missing San Antonio.
What the sources do not say
Pigafetta's surviving account already uses terms meaning Pacific or peaceful sea, but records no naming ceremony on 28 November. His original journal is lost; four later manuscript versions survive.
These were the first recorded European ships to sail from the Atlantic into the Pacific through the southern South American strait. Vasco Núñez de Balboa had reached the ocean's American shore in 1513.
Pigafetta puts the subsequent voyage without fresh provisions at three months and twenty days.
Sources
Researched 23 Aug 2026 6 sources 2 audit passes
How this was checked
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What the sources leave uncertain
- The date is explicitly recorded by Pigafetta and is therefore solid. It is the conventional contemporaneous date, predating adoption of the Gregorian calendar.
- The precise moment and wording of Magellan's naming of the ocean are not documented as a ceremony on 28 November. Pigafetta's later account simply uses terms meaning Pacific or peaceful sea.
- Early sources and maps used several names for all or parts of the strait—including Patagonian Strait, Strait of Victoria, Channel of All Saints and Strait of Magellan. A single formal renaming by Charles V is not securely demonstrated.