Three ships nodded with the tide in Acapulco Bay. The San Diego,
Santo Tomás, and Tres Reyes were light draft vessels, able to
anchor in shallow waters. Each had been careened — flopped on
its side like a beached whale — and inspected for leaks and
shipworms; each caulked, scrubbed, and made seaworthy for
Sebastián Vizcaíno’s historic voyage up the California coast in
1602. The 200-ton flagship San Diego came from Guatemala. Its
topsail had no decorations, a recent trend away from warlike
emblems stitched to the canvas. The San Diego was longer and
heavier than Cabrillo’s San Salvador, which had made the voyage
60 years earlier. Francisco de Bolaños, chief pilot, knew the
route. He was boatswain when a storm hurled the San Augustin
onto the rocks near Drake’s Bay — north of San Francisco Bay —
in 1595. An estimated 150 tons of treasure vanished in the
whitewater. Bolaños and others made the 2000-mile trek home in
an open plank boat cobbled from the wreckage. Toribio Gómez de
Corban captained the Santo Tomás.