Captain John P. De Silva: Photo Gallery

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This portolan map shows Magellan's remarkable voyage around the world from 1519 to 1521. The map is hand drawn and painted on vellum. It was prepared by a Genoese chart maker, Battista Agnese and produced in Venice. A "portolan" map is the earliest style of nautical chart and Agnese prepared a number of remarkably accurate and beautifully decorated charts of this style.

Magellan's voyage led to Limasawa, Cebu, Mactan, Palawan, Brunei, Celebes and finally to the Spice Islands.

Cape Horn and Bad Weather

Not a good place to pass from May to about November each year.

Showing Cape Rollers at Cape Agulhas and how ship is taking the rollers.

Embarkation of the Pilgrims

by Robert Walter Weir.

William Bradford is depicted at center, kneeling in the background, symbolically behind Gov. John Carver (holding hat) whom Bradford would succeed.

Ancient Ships: Japanese Red Seal Ship

Red seal ships were Japanese armed merchant sailing ships bound for Southeast Asian ports with a red-sealed patent issued by the early Tokugawa shogunate in the first half of the 17th century. Between 1600 and 1635, more than 350 Japanese ships went overseas under this permit system.

Besides Japanese traders, 12 European and 11 Chinese residents, including William Adams and Jan Joosten, are known to have received permits.

A 1634 Japanese Red seal ship, incorporating Western-style square and lateen sails, rudder and aft designs. The ships were typically armed with 6 to 8 cannons. Tokyo Naval Science Museum.

Ancient Navigators: William Adams

1707 map of Japan, with a cartouche representing the audience of William Adams with the Shogun. From Naaukeurige Versameling der Gedenk-Waardigste Zee en Land-Reysen (a series of accounts of famous voyages). Thought to be by Pieter van der Aa.

Age of Discovery: Henry The Navigator

Henry the navigator was a Portuguese prince and the organizer of the first expedition of Europeans to the new land.

An important figure in the early days of the Portuguese Empire and the Age of Discoveries in total. He was responsible for the early development of European exploration and maritime trade with other continents.

Age of Discovery

Age of Discovery called discovery, made by European travelers in late XV - in the first half XVII. The impetus for these Europeans were searching for a new sea route to India around the Ottoman possessions. The first started looking for new ways to Eastern countries Portugal and Spain.

This is the world in the imagination of Europeans before the Age of Discovery.
(World Map, compiled in 1436)

Ancient Navigation: Viking Navigation

The Norsemen had to have other navigational means at their disposal, for in summer the stars effectively do not appear for months on end in the high latitudes. One method they relied on was watching the behaviour of birds. A sailor wondering which way land lay could do worse than spying an auk flying past. If the beak of this seabird is full, sea dogs know, it's heading towards its rookery; if empty, it's heading out to sea to fill that beak. One of the first Norwegian sailors to hazard the voyage to Iceland was a man known as Raven-Floki for his habit of keeping ravens aboard his vessel. When he thought he was nearing land, Raven-Floki released the ravens, which he had deliberately starved. Often as not, they flew "as the crow flies" directly toward land, which Raven-Floki would reach simply by following their lead.

'Ancient legends of Viking mariners using mysterious sunstones to reveal the position of the sun on a cloudy day may well be true, according to a new study. While experts have long argued that Vikings knew how to use blocks of light-fracturing crystal to locate the sun through dense clouds, archaeologists have never found solid proof.

Vikings, they argue, used transparent calcite crystal - also known as Iceland spar - to fix the true bearing of the Sun to within a single degree of accuracy.

The recent discovery of an Iceland spar aboard an Elizabethan ship sunk in 1592 - tested by the researchers - bolsters the theory that ancient mariners were aware of the crystal's potential as an aid to navigation.

Even in the era of the compass, crews might have kept such stone on hand as a backup, the study speculates. 'We have verified that even only one of the cannons excavated from the ship is able to perturb a magnetic compass orientation by 90 degrees,' the researchers wrote. 'So, to avoid navigation errors when the Sun is hidden, the use of an optical compass could be crucial even at this epoch, more than four centuries after the Viking time.'