Santa Maria Island is the last named landfall in John Blackthorne’s long Pacific passage, a point of departure measured against an ocean that offers no further sign of land. It matters both as a navigational reference and as the source of a small, carefully guarded reserve of food during a crossing marked by scurvy and uncertainty.

Geographic and Narrative Presence

Santa Maria Island is identified as lying off Chile. The narrative does not describe the island itself or show Blackthorne ashore; instead, it appears behind him as the origin of the open-water stretch. From there, he has crossed 133 days of ocean, while reefs and distant outcrops offer warnings but no reliable indication of landfall.

That absence gives the island its narrative shape. It is a named point at the edge of the known route, set against Blackthorne’s sense that the ocean is seemingly endless. His passage is not simply a distance between two settled places: after leaving the Chilean coast, the familiar landmarks fall away, and the next hoped-for land is Japan.

A Measure of the Crossing

The island gives Blackthorne a fixed reference for reckoning a voyage made under severe navigational limits. On April 21, 1600, he records that it is the 133rd day from Santa Maria Island. He notes the ship’s latitude as 32 degrees north, its course as 270 degrees, veering north-northwest, and the sighting of large reefs to the northeast. His entry turns the island into the baseline from which elapsed time and the ship’s uncertain position can be stated.

Such precision does not mean the route is secure. The surviving charts are vague, and longitude cannot be fixed. A pilot’s rutter can preserve courses, soundings, depths, currents, winds, storms, and hazards, but its usefulness depends on the accuracy of the observations and copies it contains. Against those limits, the 133 days since Santa Maria Island are a hard-won measure of progress, not a guarantee of where the ship is.

Provisions and Survival

Santa Maria Island also persists in the material trace of Blackthorne’s preparations. In his cabin, he unwraps the last apples he has hoarded since leaving the island. The fruit is bruised and partly moldy, with maggots inside; he eats a small portion, believing the fruit and maggots may help ward off scurvy, then wraps and locks away what remains.

The saved apple connects the named landfall to the bodily cost of the crossing. Blackthorne’s own scurvy is milder than that of men who consumed their fruit carelessly, but he is still famished and in pain. Santa Maria Island is therefore more than a point on a route: in the narrative it marks the last place where a perishable provision could be gathered, rationed, and carried into the unknown.