LORE: ASTROLABE
Alvar Nuñez Cabeza De Vaca
One of History’s great Survivalists. It is very
possible that De Vaca and a few of his surviving
comrads could have strolled through Lamar,
Copano, Fulton and Rockport.
An ancient invention (Greece 200 B.C.)
that’s a Planetarium used for sea navigation. It was used well into the 1600’s, and
it was eventually replaced by the Sextant,
which wasn’t perfected until the 1700’s.
Alvar Nuñez Cabeza De Vaca, on June 27th in the year 1527, left the port of Sanlúcar de
Barrameda in southern Spain, along with five sea vessels and 600 men, to go adventuring
in the New World. He had no idea that he was about to experience multiple Hurricanes,
shipwrecks (plural), starvation, beatings, enslavement, and isolation from anything civilized for the next 10 long years.
They go to Florida, led by a greedy Governer in search for gold (how classic), and after
abusing some natives (it must have been standard proceedure back then to capture the first
native you could find and force them to be your guide), they end up getting lost, fighting
with the locals and taking heavy losses.
Out of desperation, they use their weapons and spurs to build five primitive boats and began sailing towards Mexico.
17