Accordingly, in 1470, Gomez sent out João de Santarem and Pedro de Escobar, accompanied by the two leading Portuguese pilots, Martin Fernandez and Alvaro Esteves, as "directors of the navigation." On the 29th December, they discovered St. Thomas island, and on 17th January, 1471, the Isle of St. Anne, afterwards Ilha do Principe, both close to the Equator on the open side of the Bight of Biafra. Another voyage seems to have been made, under Gomez' auspices, in 1471. Fernando Po now reached the island in the angle of the Central African coast which is still called after him; and men began to find that the Eastern bend of the continent, which had been followed since 1445-6 with some hope of a direct approach to Asia, now took a sharp turn to the South. In spite of this disappointment, Fernandez and Esteves in 1472-3 passed beyond the furthest of earlier travellers, and crossed the Equator[52] into that Southern Hemisphere on the edge of which the caravels had long been hovering, as mariners like Cadamosto saw ever more clearly stars unknown in the Northern Hemisphere, and ever more nearly lost sight of the Arctic pole. In 1474-5 Cape Catherine, two degrees South of the Line, was reached, and here the advance of exploration stopped for a time till the accession of John II in 1481. [Footnote 52: It is not very clearly recorded who first crossed the line among the Portuguese sailors of this time. Some conclude as stated in text, but Nordenskjöld believes it was "perhaps Lopo Gonçalvez, after whom a promontory directly south of the Equator is named"; he also thinks this great event was accomplished on Gomez' first expedition, under Santarem, Escobar, Fernandez and Esteves, in 1470-1. As to progress eastwards, towards India, it was much exaggerated by many. While his caravels were still off the Guinea coast, King Affonso V believed the meridian of "Tunis, and even of Alexandria," had been already passed.]