Gil Eanes Sails Past Cape Bojador

In 1434, the Portuguese navigator Gil Eanes sailed past Cape Bojador on the coast of Western Sahara. For decades, European sailors had treated the promontory as an impassable boundary. Shallow coastal reefs reached far into the sea, while rough breakers and prevailing winds made close-shore travel perilous. Contemporary European geographers frequently considered the headland the southern boundary of known waters, and Portuguese vessels had repeatedly turned back rather than attempt to bypass the environmental obstacles.

Eanes was born in Lagos, a port town in the Algarve that served as the assembly point for his maritime expeditions. Surviving documentation reveals very little about his origins or early life, though he served within the household of Prince Henry, commonly known as Henry the Navigator, where he held the rank of squire. Records from 1421 indicate that a man named Gil Eanes directed two transport vessels conveying horses for the Portuguese crown in Southampton, though historians cannot verify with certainty whether this was the same seaman.