The Magellan Project
Retracing the Route • 500 Years Later
Sail the seven seas with us…12 epic ocean passages that follow in the wake of Magellan’s journey. Or join us at planned onshore events in remarkable global destinations to celebrate exploration and ocean education. If you are a sailor, adventurer, history buff, ocean conservationist, photographer, story teller or someone who loves to dance under the stars…we have an adventure for you!
A Magellan Project Update from Jim Foster:
I am as busy as a one-legged waiter at the IHOP on a Sunday morning when church lets out and all hell breaks loose.
Between three floods of our condo here in Anchorage and looking after my adult daughter Sarah and her eight year old sister Melissa, the single father and work from home on a Masters in History online with Arizona State University costume I am wearing, life keeps pushing forward.
My Crealock 37 sailboat, the Sea Monkey, is on the hard in Seward, AK having engine work completed and an electric anchor windlass installed. The plan is to take her to Anacordes, WA this summer for a complete re-rigging.
The summer of 2023, gravity and the god of big water permitting, we will see the project underway south to Guam to pick up the Magellan circumnavigation route.
The virus we keep hearing about yanked the rug out from under the big team and catamaran plan of 2020.
I am back to the very original plan; sailing the Sea Monkey (with a companion or two on various legs) along the route of the earth’s first documented circumnavigation while writing and filming along the way.
The five-hundred-year anniversary of the completion of the first documented circumnavigation of the planet will be this September, 2022. The beginning of globalization and the Anthropocene can for all intents and purposes be assigned to this date.
The competition and colonialism that brought us to this point must be replaced with collaboration and cooperation. We are all cousins after all, to one degree or another. Our technically brilliant but emotionally troubled species all ranged out of Africa as the geneticists are documenting.
We need to collaborate and cooperate to unwind the long standing family blood feud we are living, before we blow the whole place up.
The Magellan Project will beat the ‘collaborate and cooperate’ drum through the prism of history.
Stories to follow…..
Jim
Welcome Aboard!
In 1519, Ferdinand Magellan departed from the SW Coast of Spain with a fleet of ships in search of the westward route to the Spice Islands. The goal was to complete Columbus’ attempt to reach Asia by sailing west. Five ships with a combined crew of 270 intrepid souls sailed from Spain to the Canary Islands, and then across the Atlantic to the coast of South America. The ship made way South along the coast slowly, eventually arriving at their first New World port, home of present-day Rio de Janiero.
During the journey, enormous seas and ferocious storms pounded the expedition. Scurvy and starvation decimated the crews. Espionage, shipwreck, and a massacre were all part of the three year adventure. Treachery and attempted mutinies slowed the expedition's progress.
Three years later, one ship with 18 of the original souls appeared offshore at San Lucar de Barrameda, the port of departure. The Victoria, loaded with spices and barely afloat, had closed the circle, completing the first documented circumnavigation of the Earth.
In commemoration of the 500 year anniversary of the expedition, The Magellan Project will retrace the circumnavigation route, on a modern vessel with world-class blue water sailors and modern navigation and communication equipment. The crew welcomes scientists, journalists, sailors, global adventurers and conservationists to participate in the adventure. We will be engaged with virtual and onshore public projects along the way. A documentary will be produced connecting the original geographic milestone with our Magellan Project adventure. Educational content covering subjects related to geography, history, anthropology, navigation, marine biology, and weather will be produced and posted online.
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