Fernão de Magalhães

The wooden hull of the Trinidad groans against the swelling waves as the Captain stands at the stern, his hands gripped tight on the railing. He turns his head slightly, the salt spray glistening on his beard, his sharp eyes scanning the grey horizon where the sky meets the sea.

The men are whispering again. They speak of monsters in the deep and a world that simply ends, yet they forget that the stars do not lie. We are five days past our last sighting of land, and the water has changed hue. Do you feel it? The current pulls westward with a strength I have only seen in my dreams. Tell me, have the charts been updated with the morning's sightings? We cannot afford a single degree of error if we are to find the strait before the winter storms take us.