Three days after the failed attempt to torpedo the Chilean ships on its 4th raid, the Huáscar returned to Antofagasta to trace the submarine cable and cut it.

While he was carrying out this operation, at 1:35 p.m., the Chilean corvette Abtao, under the command of Captain Aureliano Sánchez, fired a shot at him with one of its 150- pound deck guns.

The commander of the Huáscar, Miguel Grau Seminario, ordered a combat rally and the Peruvian flag made by women from Trujillo was hoisted.

A shot from the battery Bellavista destroyed the base of the chimney of the Peruvian ironclad, killing 2nd Lieutenant Carlos de los Heros and wounding the student of the Constables' School Alcídes Gutiérrez, son of Colonel Silvestre Gutierrez.

The Huáscar stayed at bay until 10 pm, when smoke began rising from the south and Grau ordered a retreat to the north to avoid a fight against the Chilean ironclad Blanco Encalada.

By order of Rafael Sotomayor Baeza, Minister of War and Navy in Campaign since August 20, newly installed in Antofagasta, the Blanco Encalada and the Itata travel south to pursue the Huáscar and at the same time, protect the transports that were about reach Caldera, but on the morning of the 29th, at the height of the Blanco Encalada cove, he was ordered to return to Antofagasta because the Huáscar had been sighted in Mejillones.