Manapad is a coastal village in far south India, 60 kilometres (37 mi) from Tuticorin and 18 km (11 mi) south of Tiruchendur. St. Francis Xavier came to Manapad in 1542, when he began missionary activity on the Fishery coast. He lived in a grotto cavern on the seaward face of a cliff and held mass at a chapel of the Captain's Cross, built from a ship's mast after a storm in 1540.