Note 95 — Chapter XXXII

Father Fray Manuel Quintero,95 accompanied by the father visitor Fray Antonio Godínez, his two associates, and father Fray Arcadio, embarked in a caracoa to cross the Embocadero of San Bernardino, to land in Bulusan. In crossing there one must leave affairs to the disposition of the Indians of the country, pilots who know the time when one must cross—namely, when the tide ceases to rise, and has stopped—for then one can pass without the slightest difficulty. But if one chooses another time, no ship of high freeboard, [even] with all its sails and with a favorable wind, can resist the current, which is so strong that it will cause the ship to spin round and round. Those fathers being newly come, were unwilling to leave themselves to the management of Indians, or to await the point of the tide, but obliged the Indians to cross. In the midst of the passage the boat overturned; and a Spaniard, the nephew of father Fray Manuel, named Don Gregorio Quintero, and two other Spaniards were drowned. Father Fray Manuel and the secretary of the father visitor, a Vizcayan, who were fine swimmers, reached land with great difficulty. The father visitor, his associate, and father Fray Arcadio did not abandon the craft, and accordingly were saved by the Indian rowers; but they reached land after being sadly buffeted about. The father visitor lost his letters-patent and papers, and consequently did not make his visit. He returned to Nueva España after having passed many seas and suffered many troubles, and after having been obliged to put back to port in the year 1669. He was later provincial of the province of San Diego. The currents of that Embocadero are so terrible that the roar of the tide when it is low can be heard for many leguas.96 The reckoning of its flow and ebb is so variable that great mathematicians who have given themselves to that speculation have not been able to understand it....