The story of explorer Ferdinand Magellan

Ferdinand Magellan. His adventure proved the world really is round. Ah, what a moment! I, Ferdinand Magellan, am sitting on the edge of the world as we know it, and looking at the world as we don't know it, because nobody has ever seen the ocean beyond those rocks, except us! What do you mean, Skipper? Beyond those rocks? A gigantic, enormous, huge and extremely large ocean! A whole new one! Now, what shall we call it? The crew wanted to call it the Magellan Ocean because it's big like me! Ha ha! Nah! The Atlantic Part Two! Nah! Sounds silly! Besides, the Atlantic was a roaring, rampaging ocean, whereas this? Warm and gentle, flat and friendly! Let's call this the Peaceful Ocean! On second thoughts, better make that the Pacific Ocean! Yes! The Pacific Ocean! Great! Probably won't catch on! Now, let me tell you how I got to be sitting here, peacefully munching on a turkey leg, overlooking the peaceful, er, I mean, the Pacific Ocean! I was only little when my dad died. As he was a smart Portuguese nobleman, I was sent to the King of Portugal's palace as a sort of dog's body! Magellan! Running errands, fetching and carrying! It was a busy kind of place! Merchants coming in, hassling the Queen to buy their silks brought back from the Indies! Oh, your Highness, this is just your colour! It goes beautifully with your beautiful skin! Explorers and navigators showing off treasures they had found on their travels, and new ways of getting to places for spices, or silks, or gold! Look, they do a sharp left at Gibraltar, then right about here, and then, uh, I'm sure you get to what's his name, do a left here and you get to China! Kind of exciting stuff for a small kid to be around! I wanted to learn about ships, oceans, how to be a daring explorer! Uh, unfortunately, you need to learn a bit of This little navigation gadget, you put your finger in here, oh ouch! And, and squeeze, and then multiply by the square root of pi, and then you calculate the angle behind the sun of the star! But I soon got the hang of navigation! That's finding your way around the ocean to you and me! And I had this idea of finding a new sea route to everyone's favourite luxury shopping centre, the Spice Islands! Indonesia, you call it! So, I thought I would find a new route that would put Portugal on the map! Hey, you stupid! Portugal is already on the map! So is Europe, Africa, a lot of Asia, and here, the Spice Islands! Sugar, and spice, and all things nice! Indonesia, we call it today! The place you people wanted to visit to buy all that sweet stuff! They already have a route round here, though it takes a really long time! And we can no longer go across here, because of the Turks, and some guy has already gone across here! Christopher Columbus! That's the guy! But, who knows what's here? West of here, what happens here, anybody? I had an idea what happened west of there, but there was only one way to find out! I asked the King of Portugal, Sire, I want to find the route to the Spice Islands by going west! Please fork out for ships and sailors to go far past where any man has ever gone! But the King thinks I'm a crazy nerd, and all his friends think I'm a joker! Then, I had an idea! I would go to Portugal's rival, Portugal's next door neighbour, the King of Spain, and he agrees! Dear Captain Magellan, I will pay for your voyage to goodness knows where, west into the unknown! I hope it's to the Spice Islands! I'll give you enough money to pay the wages of 245 sailors, but not too many Portuguesers, please! This is a Spanish trip, you can have five ships! I'm on my way! But finding 254 sailors willing to make the journey further than any man had journeyed before isn't easy! In the end, I decide not to tell them anything! So, no, not quite sure where exactly we're going or when we will be back either! What do you think? Sound worth a try? Oh, go on! Well, I did manage to get a few sailors in the end, but it isn't until we are well on our way that I tell the crew we are heading west into the unknown! Oh, come on, lads! It'll turn out all right! We did sail west across the huge, rough Atlantic Ocean, some of the men puking their guts out! They were so scared! And just as we started to run out of hope, well, guess what? We found this! This lovely spot we call Rio de Janeiro! Warm water, friendly natives, lots of healthy fruit and veg! But we were on a mission, so I made a decision! What? Moving? From here? You're joking! But I managed to get them back on board! We saw a weird and ghostly blue light at the top of our masts! My lads thought this was a message from God to cheer us up and wish us good luck! St. Elmo's Fire, it's called! Good luck, my foot! Next thing we know, there's a huge thunderstorm! To get out of the storm, we turned in through a gap in the rocks and we sailed through a quiet waterway with huge mountains either side! And that's the story so far! How I got here, meeting my wild bird and looking at the Pacific Ocean! You know, this is my last good meal for 96 days! The Pacific turns out to be peaceful, all right! We didn't know where we were or where we were going! And we had no food left, not a thing! We were starving, ready to try anything! Bootsteak and chips. Grill strips of boot in hot sunlight. Add wood chips from ship's mast or deck. Bootlace spaghetti. Boil laces. Add dandruff instead of grated cheese. Rat soup. Lightly braise rat or rodent in water until deliciously hairy and tender. A nice variety of this sailor's favorite is sautéed rat's poo. Delicious, crunchy and full of... oh excuse me, I think I'm going to be... Most of the sailors drop dead from starvation or scurvy. What's scurvy when it's a hung thing? Scurvy? That's a disease specially for sailors on long journeys. When your gums go black, your breath stinks, and all your teeth fall out, then you drop dead. Lovely! Well, there were only a few of us left, hanging on. When... Land ahoy! Here we are, what's left of us anyway, after 96 days at sea in the Philippines. Wait a minute, wait a minute. I know sailors who came here from the other direction. That means the world really must be... round! I became really matey with a local chief, and I persuaded him to become a Christian like me. Oh yes, and I also told him, listen here chiefie, God is your friend, and so am I, and so are my men. We come in friendship and peace, and your friend is my friend, and your enemy is my enemy. It was quite the wrong thing to say, that last bit, because the chief seemed to have quite a lot of enemies, and I didn't know quite how unpopular he was, until I volunteered to fight them. Behind you! Men, you must carry on sailing westward. Leave these islands, sail westward, and I have a funny feeling you might... Ferdinand Magellan. He was right about his funny feeling, though he never saw for himself how right he was, because he'd never finish his voyage. He didn't know it, but he had led the boats that sailed across here, then the long, long journey across the peaceful Pacific, fourteen weeks at sea, and now the crew, what's left of them, obey their poor dead captain and sail all the way back, back to where they started, Seville, Spain. Not five ships, but one. Not two hundred and forty-five men, but eighteen. They had been traveling for three long years. No wonder nobody in Seville recognized this strange line of ragged, sad sailors. It was hardly the hero's welcome they deserved. But our brave hero, Captain Ferdinand Magellan, was no longer around to tell the story of their incredible journey, that his men were the first sailors ever to have sailed all the way around the world.