Cristobal Colon

Cristobal Colon

We have now visited the four main points of the journey of the man we know as Christopher Columbus. We visited the Ambassador Room of the Alhambra in Grenada, Spain, where Columbus got support from Ferdinand and Isabella. We also visited the harbor of Cadiz, where he assembled his three ships before starting out. We spent about two and a half weeks in the Canary Islands, where he started his famous ocean crossing. And now, we have recently arrived at the place where he landed, San Salvador, in the Bahamas. There are actually two monuments on opposite sides of the island, both commemorating his first landing. One is a large cross monument on the west coast of the island south of our current anchorage. It is the more likely spot for the legendary navigator to have come ashore. The other is ridiculously situated atop a reef bound headland totally open to the prevailing winds, and probably with heavy breakers. If Columbus came ashore there, he either had a weird front or storm on his hands, or his boat went to shore in pieces. There is little chance that a great sailor like Columbus would have needlessly endangered his crew by anchoring on the wrong side of the island. The monument was probably put there by people who had zero knowledge or experience of the sea, and reasoned that if Columbus had been coming from the east, he would have landed on the east side of the island. Never mind the dangerous reefs and violent breakers that are capable of smashing any boat or ship of the time to bits, no, anyone can see that he would have come ashore on the east side. As if. Columbus was a legendary sailor, he would have come ashore in a nice, sheltered anchorage, not one open to Atlantic rollers.
--Orion Date
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