The Missing Day

The Victoria dropped anchor off the island of Santiago, in Cape Verde, leaking everywhere, her crew exhausted. Of the five ships that had sailed from Sanlúcar de Barrameda almost three years earlier, she was the only one still afloat. There was hardly any food left on board.

The islands were Portuguese, and the Portuguese must not find out where that ship had come from: her hold was full of cloves from the Moluccas, a spice worth a fortune that Portugal considered its own. So the captain, Juan Sebastián Elcano, sent a few men ashore in the ship’s boat with a made-up story: they would say they were coming from the Americas and had lost a mast crossing the equator. All they had to do was buy rice and come back.

Antonio Pigafetta, the Italian who kept the expedition’s diary, gave them one more errand: to ask what day it was. He had spent almost three years writing everything down, day after day, without skipping a single one. The pilot, Francisco Albo, also recorded every day in his logbook. The two of them agreed: on board, it was Wednesday.

The boat came back with the rice and with an answer that left everyone speechless: ashore, it was Thursday.

Pigafetta went through his diary page by page. Not a single day was missing. Albo went through his logbook. Nothing missing there either. The explanation lay in the route of the voyage itself: they had always sailed westwards, chasing the sun. And whoever chases the sun sees noon arrive a tiny bit later each day, as if their days were slightly longer than those on land. Just a few minutes each time. For almost three years. All the way round the world.

A few days later, on another trip ashore for more rice, the Portuguese uncovered the deception and arrested thirteen men from the boat. Elcano didn’t wait to see what would happen: he weighed anchor and set course for Spain with those still on board.