“If we were settled, instead, at Monterey, what is the chance that they would discover us while en route to the Golden Gate?”
“Small.” Tasman ran his finger lightly over the globe. “The California Current comes down the coast, as is marked here, and Sir Francis Drake said that the prevailing winds are from the northwest. The Spanish surely know that, too. Knowing the latitude of the Golden Gate—as they would from the up-timers’ maps—the Spanish, coming from Mexico, would swing well out to sea to avoid the California Current, make their easting above the Golden Gate, and reach it from the north.
“But there is always the possibility that some Manila galleon would put into Monterey Bay for shelter and fresh water. Vizcaino explored it in 1602, and he suggested that the Spanish settle there.”
“A suggestion they ignored for 167 years, yes? And don’t forget, we have taken Manila. There isn’t going to be another galleon coming from Manila to Acapulco.”
“And indeed we Dutch hope to catch the Acapulco galleon that even now is en route to Manila.”
“Well, you have my blessing.” Masamune raised his hand in the karana mudra, the gesture of removing obstacles. Tasman didn’t dare tell him that in the Netherlands, raising the little and index fingers, and folding down the middle fingers, had a quite different significance.
Tasman rose and backed out, happy to stretch his legs.
It was a pity he hadn’t had the opportunity to study Masamune’s globe more carefully. If he had, he might have wondered about the etymology of the little island off the southeast tip of Australia . . . the island called Tasmania.
Nortbeastern Pacific Ocean
The sea has many dangers, but the Ieyasu Maru had not fallen to any of them. It was acting on secret orders; that after they had been at sea for at least two months, and by dead reckoning had traveled at least one thousand ri, they were to work their way north, as the winds permitted, to fifty degrees North—the latitude of Vancouver Island.
The Ieyasu Maru was crewed entirely by Japanese. Its captain was Yamada Haruno, a veteran of the shogun’s “Red Seal” trading ships, and the first mate was “Tenjiku” (“India”) Tokubei. Tokubei had gone to sea when he was fifteen, and had traveled twice to India, with the Dutch trader Jan Joosten van Lodensteijn. He had a gift for languages, and for adapting to alien cultures.
Jan Joosten himself had taught Tokubei how to use the hoekboog, the double triangle. This was a bit like the Davis quadrant of the English, except the sliding vanes traveled along the sides of triangles, rather than the arcs of circles.
Tokubei had been judging the movement of the sun, as the measurement was supposed to be taken when the sun reached the highest point in its trajectory across the sky—local noon. He had adjusted the two sliders to what he guessed, based on yesterday’s measurement and dead reckoning, the latitude would be. That way he would only need to “fine tune” the sliders, speeding up the process. Which was a good thing, since holding the hoekboog in position could be a bit tiring.
He stood with his back to the sun, adjusted the sight hole slider and the shadow-casting slider until he could see both the horizon and the shadow. This was best done at the end of a roll, when the ship’s motion was least. Then he read off the altitude from the scales.
“I get fifty, on the nose,” he announced.
The captain had been making his own reading. “I’m a bit higher, call it fifty and a quarter.”
“What should we put in the log?”
“Fifty makes more sense, given our progress. Call it fifty.” He raised his voice. “Helmsman, take us due east by the compass.”
“Due east, sir,” the helmsman acknowledged.
Under ideal conditions, Tokubei could determine latitude to within a quarter-degree or so. But that assumed a calm sea, and a clear sky at noon. “Noon,” of course, was simply when the sun was highest in the sky, and was a matter of guesswork. If the ship were heaving about, or the sun was shrouded, the navigational measurement became even more of an exercise in what an up-timer would call “guesstimating.”
If the sun could not be seen at all, you had to find the Pole Star at night. Since it didn’t cast a shadow, you had to use the old forestaff, instead, to make the measurement. Its accuracy deteriorated at high latitudes, because the scale gradations had to be placed closer together.
And if it were overcast both day and night, well, you were in trouble.
* * *
The “First Fleet”—the flotilla of Japanese, Chinese, Dutch and captured Spanish and Portuguese ships that was conveying the kirishitan, Date Masamune and some of his retainers, and a small number of hired specialists—had set sail at last. Because of the restrictions on overseas travel of the last few years, the Japanese had only a limited number of ocean-worthy ships. They had built more since Iemitsu’s decision to transport the Christians, and more still had been brought up recently from the Philippines. From captured Manila, long a thorn in the shogun’s back.